Nigeria exports $10bn raw cocoa annually

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According to BusinessDay reports, Olusegun Aganga, the minister of industry, trade and investment, has disclosed that the total value of exporting raw cocoa from Nigeria is approximately $10 billion a year.

He reiterated the commitment of the country to expand the commodity’s production for additional foreign earnings.

Aganga, who said this at the just concluded cocoa summit 2014 in Abuja, noted that with the planned repositioning efforts of the present administration, the country would extract immense value out of the cocoa industry.

According to him, the Federal Government would not relent in the implementation of expansion projects for cocoa processing and manufacturing in the country to claim a greater share of the annual $200 billion global market for finished goods made from cocoa.

“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 percent of total cocoa produced is from Africa, but less than five percent 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.

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Aganga 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.