Cocoa arrivals in the port city of Lagos, Nigeria's main export route, rose to 29,000 tonnes in November, up 9.4 percent on the same month last season, an average of estimates by exporters showed on Friday.
The increased supply is in line with forecasts of an improved 2007/08 main crop harvest in Nigeria, the world's fifth biggest grower, after last season's disappointing output, farmers and traders said.
"This is the peak period for Nigerian cocoa. November arrivals to Lagos rose slightly above last year and the outlook for December is also good," one major exporter told Reuters. Traders said arrivals would have been much higher but for poor transport in Nigeria's main cocoa belt, which has made it more difficult and costly to get beans to Lagos.
About 20 percent of the beans that come to Lagos are bought by local processors, who have seen rapid growth in capacity in the past three years because of government incentives. Domestic grinding is expected to expand further next year when more plants are due to come on stream.
Nigeria's cocoa main crop traditionally runs from October to March, but the harvest in the main south-west and south-east growing regions started a month earlier this year.
Total Lagos arrivals in the two months since October are 18.6 percent above the same period last year, the estimates showed. About 10 percent of Nigerian cocoa output is shipped through the south-eastern port city of Calabar, the capital of the remote state of Cross River which is on the border with Cameroon.
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