The top cocoa-growing country in the world, Ivory Coast has started dealing with the world’s top traders directly instead of its former system of auctions.
Ivory Coast is adopting a system already used by their neighbour Ghana. This was disclosed to Reuters by two senior sources at the Coffee and Cocoa Council.
“After a meeting with the Cocobod board in December in Abidjan, we’ve decided to merge our sales systems, favouring the Ghana one that seems more fit to market fluctuations,” a CCC source said.
In Ghana, cocoa is traded in direct sales to exporters, depending on the international price.
The sources added that in the first week of February, Ivory Coast sold 400,000 tonnes using the new system.
“We’ve already sold 400,000 tonnes through this new system on a total of 600,000 tonnes for the 2019/20 season,” the CCC source said.
The two top cocoa growing countries have decided to harmonise the sales system used by these two countries in order to influence international prices, which have been low in recent years due to overproduction.
Ivory Coast is gradually abandoning its system where it sold to exporters through auctions on its platform twice a day. That practice was introduced in 2012.
Ivory Coast, produced 2 million tonnes last season and expects produce about 2.2 million tonnes this season, a level that would be an all-time record.
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