Ivory Coast Defends Move Boosting Locals’ Share of Cocoa Exports

(Bloomberg) -- The regulator of the world’s biggest cocoa producer defended its decision to allocate 20% of international contracts to local exporters, saying they need to “learn the trade alongside multinationals” who dominate the $100 billion chocolate industry.

“There are five major exporters and processors who dominate the chocolate market,” according to Yves Kone, managing director of Le Conseil du Cafe-Cacao, or CCC, Ivory Coast’s cocoa regulator. “When you have cocoa, in the end you have to sell it to them,” he said in an interview in the commercial hub, Abidjan.

The 20% allocation was provided for during the cocoa industry’s reform in 2011-12, and the decree only stands to reinforce this decision, Kone said.

Even so, the regulator has only allocated some 161,000 tons of its estimated 320,000 tons -- the latter figure being 20% of the main harvest for the 2021-22 season -- citing a lack of finance as one of the obstacles facing local shippers.

“The will of the government is that nationals are more and more integrated into the sales system, but we need to have serious exporters who can carry out the work,” Kone said.

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