(Business in Cameroon) - Nigeria plans to associate with Cameroon to obtain better prices for their cocoa. This was announced, on October 10, 2019, by Sayina Riman, president of the Nigerian cocoa producers’ association and vice president of the World Cocoa Producers Organisation (WCPO), according to British media Reuters.
"We are talking to Cameroon to see if we can become a regional bloc ... and see if we can get our buyers, who know our quality to give us better differentials," Sayina Riman said. He announced that this month, players of the cocoa sector and government officials will hold meetings to elaborate an action plan for official negotiations with Cameroonian authorities.
For the time being, in Cameroon, the government, as well as cocoa operators, are unaware of that plan. However, international experts expect that an association between Cameroon, Nigeria, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire (that provides 70% of world production) would reverse the current trend in world cocoa prices, after the price blockade imposed, between June and Jully 2019, by Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana.
Indeed, on June 11, 2019, in Accra, Ghana, the world’s two largest cocoa producers, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, decided to stop cocoa sales as of the 2020-2021 season. The aim of this blockade is to obtain from international buyers, an increase of the prices per ton of cocoa from about $2,400 to $2,600. After barely one month of implementing this sales ban, the two countries lifted the ban even though the desired price was not reached.
Brice R. Mbodiam