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By Ange Aboa
ABIDJAN, Feb 16 (Reuters) – Ivory Coast’s Cocoa and Coffee Council (CCC) regulator said on Thursday that some domestic exporters risked defaulting on their cocoa export contracts as they struggle to source beans from the main harvest which ends in March.
The CCC was responding to a Reuters story on Monday which said that a number of exporters were on the verge of default, and that the regulator had held a crisis meeting on Feb. 10 to discuss the issue.
“Following the meeting between the management of the Coffee-Cocoa Council and the exporters, it appears that some exporters are late in their purchases, suggesting possible default,” Sophie Kourouma, spokesperson for the CCC said in response to Reuters questions.
Kourouma said that although the domestic exporters were behind on purchases due to a shortage of beans, the current rainfall should reverse the trend and more beans should flow to the ports during the last week of February.
Cocoa beans arrivals at the port have tumbled in the past few weeks as the main October-to-March harvest tails off. Arrivals at the main ports stood at 34,000 tonnes for the week to Feb. 12, versus 66,000 tonnes during the same period last season.
Some industry sources said rainfall was down compared with last year, and production has been affected as seen in the slowdown of arrivals.
“No trucks are leaving farms, and farmers and cocoa cooperatives are saying that there is very little left in the farms for the main crop harvest,” a cocoa pod counter told Reuters.
Some cocoa exporters and cocoa pod counters said that the light rains currently observed would be likely to only support the smaller April-to-September mid-crop harvest.
“We had a very good first quarter of production and arrivals but everything suddenly reversed due to bad weather conditions and now we are forced to revise our first estimates downwards,” said an exporter based in Abidjan.
The CCC, however, said it was maintaining its crop forecast for the 2022/2023 main harvest at 1.650 million tonnes, so much the same as last year.
“At this stage, production is in line with forecasts,” Kourouma said.
(Reporting by Ange Aboa Editing by Bate Felix and Jane Merriman)
((bate.felix@thomsonreuters.com; +221 77 569 3192 Twitter: @BateFelix;))
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