Cocoa from Ghana and Ivory Coast feeding multi-billion euro chocolate industry in The Netherlands

Ghana and the Ivory Coast, its western neighbour, are the two biggest producers of cocoa in the world. And cocoa from these two West African countries is the backbone of the thriving chocolate industry in The Netherlands.

According to a report by Statistics Netherlands (CBS), the total value of chocolate and semi-finished products including cocoa butter produced in that country and exported, reached €2.8 billion in 2015. That is an increase of 6 per cent on that of 2014 and an “all time-record.”

The CBS noted that The Netherlands, which is a global trade hub for cocoa beans and semi-finished products as well as being the world’s biggest importer of cocoa beans, raised its export earnings to €4.5 billion when re-exported goods are included.

The country imported more than 700 million kg of cocoa beans, exceeding the previous record year (2011) by 2 per cent.

“About 85 per cent of cocoa beans are imported from Ghana, Ivory Coast, Cameroon and Nigeria; €1.4 billion worth of cocoa beans were imported to be processed into semi-finished and final products,” the CBS said.

In the 2015/2016 production year, Ivory Coast produced a total of 1.7 million metric tonnes of cocoa and Ghana produced some 840,000 tonnes.

By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi

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