The Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA) and the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) have jointly reiterated their commitment to leveraging Ghana’s rich cocoa-based products to boost tourism.
According to Akwasi Agyeman who is Chief Executive Officer of the GTA, cocoa has since its introduction by Tetteh Quarshie into Ghana, all through the years have yielded positive results, both domestically and globally.
Speaking with journalists after the launch of the Ghana Chocolate Week, themed; ‘Eat Chocolate, Stay Healthy and Grow Ghana’, the GTA boss said the extension of the National Chocolate Day into a National Chocolate Week seeks to promote and increase the consumption of cocoa-based products.
“With collaboration from COCOBOD and GTA, we seek to increase the consumption of cocoa especially with hospitality facilities in the country and once we are able to do that, local production of cocoa will be boosted, farmers yields will multiply and these will lead to more jobs created in the cocoa value chain,” he told journalists.
“The entire cocoa value chains stand to benefit from this partnership and we are keen to make chocolate tourism a key feature our product offering…So far we have built a museum at the Tetteh Quarshie Cocoa farm at Mampong in the Eastern region and we seek to expand this to ensure people who visit Ghana can witness the importance of cocoa in Ghana,” Akwasi Agyeman added.
Chief Executive Officer of Ghana COCOBOD, Joseph Boahen Aidoo on his part underscored the need to increase investment in the cocoa value chain, primarily meant to improve farmers' produce and livelihoods.
“Cocoa brings a lot of currency into Ghana and it's very important for us to use that to improve the lives of farmers because as a country, we must take pride in ourselves for producing the best cocoa in the world.”
He further said cocoa remains a key export commodity for Ghana which brings in currency to help stabilize the economy.
Meanwhile, the Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA) and Ghana Cocoa Board have once again joined forces to mark this year’s National Chocolate Week.
The week-long celebration is to promote the consumption of Ghanaian grown cocoa-based products as a national staple. The National Chocolate Week also coincides with Valentine’s Day.
