Ghana's 1.3% share of chocolate market earnings globally not encouraging - GIPC

Ghana is second largest producer of cocoa

21% of 1.5m cocoa farmers worldwide from Ghana

Less than US$2 billion returns made on cocoa

Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Investment Promotion Center (GIPC), Yofi Grant, has said Ghana’s earnings from the over US$130bn chocolate market worldwide is not encouraging.

According to him, the statistics are poor given the fact that Ghana is the world’s second-largest supplier of cocoa beans.

Citing figures from data, Yofi Grant said less than US$2 billion [approximately 1.3% of the global chocolate industry’s worth] of the total US$130 billion from the world chocolate industry is what Ghana gains in returns for chocolate export.

“Ghana is the second largest producer of cocoa. But every year we make about US$2, 3 billion, but if we structurally build an ecosystem where we can add value to the cocoa and produce chocolate, then we can be making US$20 billion a year out of the chocolate alone, which is much more significant than the 2billion we make just selling the beans.”

Meanwhile the market value of chocolate is expected to grow up to about US$180 billion by 2026.

He was addressing participants at the maiden edition of the Chocolatarium Business Summit held in Accra.

“The demand for chocolate is on the rise, with an increasing awareness pertaining to its nutritional and health benefits. This means chocolate-demand is anticipated to increase in the subsequent years. To cater for this, Ghanaian chocolate manufacturing companies have a responsibility to meet the demands of not only local consumers but also global patrons,” he said.