By Siaka Momoh
The Federal Government has decided to take value addition in cocoa business more seriously so that it can earn a greater share of the world’s $200bn cocoa market.
Government is doing this by intensifying the implementation of expansion projects for cocoa processing and manufacturing.
The Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Mr. Olusegun Aganga, said with the repositioning of the cocoa sector, Nigeria would extract immense value out of the cocoa industry.
He spoke in Abuja on Monday at the summit on Cocoa Value Addition in Nigeria.
Aganga said, “The total global value of exporting raw cocoa is approximately $10 billion a year; the total value from chocolates alone, all made from cocoa, is over $100 billion a year, while the total value of all finished goods made from cocoa is estimated to be as high as $200 billion a year, all drawing from the same $10 billion raw cocoa beans produced.
“With the situation today, about 76 per cent of total cocoa produced is from Africa, but less than five per cent of the wealth in the value chain is retained here. After many decades of dominating cocoa production, it is worrying that we still remain price takers, and capture so little value. This is not right, and this is what we have set out to change”.
He said with the expansion of cocoa processing and manufacturing capacity, Government was set to retain more of the value of the Cocoa industry in Nigeria, create jobs and wealth for citizens and generate income for government.
The minister noted that the partnership between his Ministry, the Ministry of Agriculture and Organised Private Sector (OPS) was a very good evidence of President Goodluck Jonathan’s unwavering commitment to pushing the frontiers of economic development and returning Nigeria to the heights of its glory in the cocoa industry.
He said, “This event is a unique collaboration between three parties – the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade, and Investment; Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development; and the Organised Private sector in the Nigerian Cocoa industry.
“This is where future generations of Nigeria will remember that, together, we turned the course of the Nigerian Cocoa industry. We must, however, develop a bold vision for the Nigerian Cocoa value chain, which will define a clear road map with roles for all stakeholders.”
“The cocoa industry is a clear example of where these two programmes interface (i.e. where Agricultural Transformation Agenda meets the Nigeria Industrial Revolution Plan). The possibilities for transformational change are therefore boundless,” he stressed.
Speaking at the event, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina, said his Ministry was working with the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment on a ministerial memo on value chain that would unlock the cocoa sector.
He said the memo would be presented to the Federal Executive Council, adding that Government had provided 1.4 million pods of high breed cocoa to farmers, free of charge, within two years.
This, he said, had increased cocoa output from 250,000 to 300,000.
In his goodwill message, the European Union Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. Michel Arrior, said Nigeria was the number one largest trading partner with Europe with total trade volume of $50 billion in 2013.
“A good and well-functioning West Africa and Common External Tariff is a welcome development and the European Union has no trade offensive in Nigeria. Consumer and finished products would be excluded from trading agreement with Nigeria,” he noted.
The Regional Director, United Nations Industrial Development Organisation, Dr. Patrick Kormawa, stated that, despite growing efforts of many African governments and private sector to move their way up the value chain, they remained constrained by the lack of appropriate financing, technical and management deficiencies and limited market access opportunities.
He urged the stakeholders’ forum to further examine and come up with plausible strategies to address the four key problems inhibiting increased value addition to cocoa in Nigeria.
Earlier, the Chairman, Cocoa Processors Association of Nigeria (COPAN), Dimeji Owofemi, reiterated the importance of the commodity board and the need to encourage youth empowerment in cocoa and local processing, among others.