Kojo Oppong Nkrumah
THE 2023 National Chocolate Week Celebration has been launched with a renewed purpose to empower artisanal cocoa processors to take advantage of the new incentives within the consumption campaign to become more competitive to meet market demands.
Launching the celebration at the Accra Tourist Information Centre, the Minister of Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, acknowledged that the cocoa industry played a significant role in stabilising the local economy, hence the need to intensify efforts aimed at boosting local production, processing, and consumption.
Mr. Oppong Nkrumah said, “One of the ways to do this is by guaranteeing light crop for the local processors so that they do not have to buy the main crop for processing.”
He advised the Ghana Cocoa Board and other stakeholder institutions to address the financing challenges of local processors by pushing for policy instruments that incentivise the financial services sector to provide financing, using cocoa beans as security.
He further advised the Ghana Free Zones Authority to intensify education on the various incentives available under the free zone enclave to help attract more local chocolatiers to join the enclave.
Deputy Minister of Tourism and the Creative Arts, Mark Okraku Mantey, lauded the active contribution of various stakeholders within the cocoa sector, trade, and tourism industries in turning the Chocolate Day Celebration into what was now becoming an important week-long tourism event and made a strong case for the continuous promotion of the initiative to attract more domestic and international participation.
Chief Executive of Ghana Cocoa Board, Joseph Boahen Aidoo, said Ghana Cocoa Board, in collaboration with industry stakeholders, was relentlessly pushing for tax incentives and upskilling for artisanal cocoa processors as part of the drive to increase local cocoa processing and consumption in Ghana.
He further disclosed that the new push is to ensure local chocolatiers are well-equipped for the competitive new markets the country seeks to explore under the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
“I am happy to announce that while we are liaising with various stakeholders to secure tax incentives for local processors, we have also secured partnership to establish a Chocolate Academy to train and polish up the skills of local artisanal chocolatiers, to enable them to meet the needs of the chocolate market,” he said.
Under the theme, Eat Chocolate, Stay Healthy, Grow Ghana! the weeklong celebration of the country’s third largest foreign exchange earner, cocoa starts with activities from the 7th to 14thof February, designed to bring the country together with a shared purpose to increase the country’s per capita consumption of cocoa.
Currently, the per capita consumption stands at 1kg, a rise from 2017’s figure of 0.50kg.
During the celebration, the much-anticipated Chocolate City, a dome set up as the hub of chocolate products at the Tetteh Quarshie Roundabout in Accra would be opened to all Ghanaian entrepreneurs within the cocoa sector such as cosmetics, food and confectionery, pharmaceuticals and other products and services to exhibit their craft at no cost to them and the public.
The Chocolate City will be open from 11th to 14th of February 2023.
A business desk report