Ghana Cocoa Board Debt Reaches $2.2 Billion as Prices Slump
- Country suffering $1 billion revenue loss in 2016-17 season
- Missed output target in 2015-16 season weighed on income
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Ghana’s cocoa regulator said it is 10 billion cedis ($2.2 billion) in debt after the nation missed its production target in the previous season and as a slump in prices is weighing on revenues from the current crop.
Ghana Cocoa Board didn’t meet revenue targets for the 2015-16 season as the total output of 778,000 metric tons of beans fell short of an earmarked 850,000 tons, Noah Amenyah, a spokesman for the regulator in the world’s second-biggest grower, said by phone on Thursday. The board so far suffered $1 billion in revenue losses in the current season that started in October as future contract prices fell by more than a third since the middle of last year, Amenyah said.