The Government of Ghana through the Ministry of Food and Agriculture is partnering with the Chinese government to boost productivity of the agriculture sector especially the cocoa subsector.
Minister of Food and Agriculture, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto made this known on Monday, July 8, 2019, in Accra while speaking at a CEO and Executive Breakfast Insight Series under the theme: ‘From Bean Exporter To Major Chocolate Exporter – Moving Ghana Beyond Aid’.
According to the Minister, the Ghana-China partnership would help to establish a market in China for Ghana cocoa.
He disclosed that Chinese investors have pledged to give a grant of $60 million to build a cocoa processing plant in Sefwi Wiaso.
The Minister added that “again it’s changing. I have just come back from China less than 10 days ago. The narrative now is that we are prepared to go to the $100 million for this plant.”
Chinese private companies are expected to be invited to invest additional $60 million, adding that discussions are going on.
He observed the need to move away from trading cocoa beans to trading cocoa products, with the view to helping move Ghana Beyond Aid.
According to him, government was looking at moving to non-traditional markets including China, Morocco, to sell its cocoa products.
He stressed that government was determined to change cocoa as the mono-crop of the Ghanaian economy, observing that there were two policies to change the status quo.
The Minister revealed “I been to China several times, the results are beginning to show. We have been around Africa, Morocco, South Africa and so on and we are cultivating these markets and I can tell you that the responses are good. The world is ready to take our chocolates, our products in the non-traditional areas of Asia, Africa and the others.”
Private Public Partnership
“And we should take maximum advantage that maximum advantage requires your involvement as private sector companies that you will invest in these areas.”
“The central issue for us is that it’s well and good to have private sector because our party is the private sector party. From 1947 from where our origin comes from, our party has always stood for private sector.
Prof Douglas Boateng CEO of PanAvest, urged Ghana and Cote d’ Ivoire to shift their attention away from just trading in the cocoa beans to trading in other aspects of cocoa.
He stated that cocoa pods were being mixed with cement in countries like Malaysia for construction works, revealing also that cocoa was being used for the production of socks.
