Ivory Coast to boost local firms' share in cocoa exports, say sources
27/04/2021 17:36
By Ange Aboa
ABDIJAN, April 27 (Reuters) - Ivory Coast will soon require
20% of cocoa purchases by multinational companies to be
fulfilled by local firms in order to reduce foreign influence on
the world's largest cocoa-exporting economy, four sources told
Reuters on Tuesday.
President Alassane Ouattara is expected to sign on Wednesday
an order to enforce a 2012 law under which Ivorian cocoa
exporters are meant to handle at least 20% of national cocoa
output.
The policy has gone largely unenforced until now. Every year
the six major international players have used their greater
financial muscle to buy and export all of the cocoa available,
while local firms lacked access to financing and to European and
U.S. chocolate makers to compete on an even playing field.
Once the new order is in force, it will be compulsory for
one fifth of all export deals contracted by multinationals to be
carried out by local exporters designated by the country's Cocoa
and Coffee Council (CCC), according to two CCC sources and two
agriculture ministry sources.
The international cocoa companies that currently hold
Ivorian export contracts are Cargill ABNO.UL , SucDen, Oam
OLAM.SI , Barry Callebaut BARN.S , Touton, and Ecom. EPGC.PK
"The cartel of these six multinationals is a danger for our
cocoa sector," one of the cocoa council sources told Reuters on
condition of anonymity. "We must reduce their influence and
ensure that all actors have a place to work."
The multinationals say they act in compliance with all CCC
regulations.
Some Ivorian firms have said that by not enforcing the
existing policy, the government had failed to provide local
companies fair access to the international market.
"For us this is not a victory but the redress of an
injustice, because for almost 10 years these multinationals have
taken advantage of this situation to consolidate their
monopoly," a director of one Ivorian export company told Reuters
on condition of anonymity.
(Reporting by Ange Aboa
Editing by Cooper Inveen and Peter Graff)
((cooper.inveen@thomsonreuters.com; +221 78 546 9850;))