COCOBOD begins roadshow to raise $1.3bn in syndicated loan

COCOBOD has started engaging several banks outside the country to possibly secure some $1.3 billion in loan for the next crop season. The funds are expected to help the COCOBOD finance purchases of cocoa beans for the 2019/2020 crop season. Speaking to JoyBusness, the Chief Executive Officer of COCOBOD, Joseph Boahen Aidoo said, “Initially we are expecting $1.3 billion. We tread cautiously even though our production has gone above 900,000 metric tonnes, we [still] tread cautiously because of the fall in the price of cocoa. This is because when the price of cocoa is falling you need larger volumes of cocoa to collateralize” COCOBOD last year raised about $1.3 billion for the purchases of about 900 million metric tonnes of cocoa beans for the crop season. The cocoa sector accounts for 4.5 per cent of GDP and contributes 25 per cent of Ghana’s merchandise export earnings. Cocoa floor price Ghana and Ivory Coast have succeeded in getting an agreement with global processors and marketers for the floor price of cocoa beans to be pegged at $2,600 per tonne. This follows an intensive two-day stakeholder engagement which hitherto ended in a snag on the first day. With 65% of global production, Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire are co-operating to tackle common challenges in the production and marketing of cocoa, and to create a conducive platform for effective engagement with traders, processors, manufacturers, and retailers on all relevant issues of mutual interest, including farmers’ income. There are fears that the sustenance of the new cocoa floor price could be tampered by low consumption rate of cocoa especially in Africa which accounts to just 4 per cent of global consumption rates.

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