ACCRA: Ghana cocoa purchases stood at 192,128 tonnes on Oct. 22 at the end of the third week of the 2015/16 season, up 118 percent on the same period last season, data from industry regulator Cocobod showed on Wednesday.
Purchases fluctuate throughout the main crop season, which runs from October to around July, and a strong start does not necessarily point to a strong season, according to experts.
Ghana is the world's second-largest producer of cocoa and Cocobod forecast a rebound in production to 850,000-900,000 tonnes in the season that started on Oct. 2 after disappointing output in 2014/15.
Some cocoa farmers and buyers said the forecast of a rebound was optimistic and they expected the crop to be hampered in part by the El Nino weather phenomenon.
There were purchases of 61,548.69 tonnes in the first week, 65,486.19 tonnes in week two and 65,092.94 tonnes in week three, figures obtained by Reuters showed.
This compares to 88,298.62 by week three last season and 228,040.13 in the same period of the 2013/14 season. Of the total, licensed buying company PBC purchased 61,741.31 tonnes, by week three while Amajaro had bought 37,000 tonnes.
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