Govt expanding cocoa industry’s manufacturing capacity—Aganga

THE Federal Government is intensifying the implementation of expansion projects for cocoa processing and manufacturing in order to claim a greater share of the annual $200 billion global market for finished goods made from cocoa.
The Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Mr. Olusegun Aganga, disclosed this in Abuja during the summit on Cocoa Value Addition in Nigeria.

Aganga said, “The total global value of exporting raw cocoa is approximately $10 billion a year; the total value from chocolates alone, all made from cocoa, is over $100 billion a year, while the total value of all finished goods made from cocoa is estimated to be as high as $200 billion a year, all drawing from the same $10 billion raw cocoa beans produced.

“With the situation today, about 76 per cent of total cocoa produced is from Africa, but less than five per cent of the wealth in the value chain is retained here. After many decades of dominating cocoa production, it is worrying that we still remain price takers, and capture so little value. This is not right, and this is what we have set out to change”.

He said with the expansion of cocoa processing and manufacturing capacity, government was set to retain more of the value of the Cocoa industry in Nigeria, create jobs and wealth for citizens and generate income for government.

- Culled from: http://www.vanguardngr.com