Efforts to implement Ivory Coast's reform of its cocoa sector are on the right track and could mean the West African country meets the conditions for debt relief by June, World Bank officials said during a visit on Saturday.
The reform of the top world grower's cocoa sector is meant to provide its farmers with a minimum price for their produce and is a key condition for debt relief under the IMF-World Bank Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) scheme - a vital part of its bid to rebuild after last year's post-election conflict.
The reform institutes a system of advance sales of next season's crop via daily auctions. But the first auctions have been boycotted over the last two weeks by exporters who say parts of the plan are unclear or unworkable.
"We met cocoa market operators and the body responsible for the reform ... and I can tell you we saw a major convergence of opinion on the direction of the reform along the lines desired by our services and discussed with the government," World Bank Executive Director Joerg Frieden told a news briefing.
Agapito Mendes Dias, administrator for Ivory Coast in the World Bank, said the reform was "on the right track".
"We think that it (completion point of HIPC) will be reached before June," he said.
Finance Minister Charles Diby said only a few "technical problems" relating to a proposed schedule of cocoa handling costs to be used in the price regulation scheme needed to be ironed out.
Ivory Coast qualified in 2009 for possible debt relief under HIPC amounting to $3 billion, equivalent to just under a quarter of its total external debt at the time. It has already received about half of that relief potential through past debt rescheduling and concessional arrears clearance operations.
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