The International Cocoa Organisation on Friday said the Ebola epidemic is only having a "minor bearing" on output of the key chocolate ingredient as the countries affected are small producers. Cocoa prices rose sharply because of fears the outbreak could disrupt production in west Africa, which accounts for 70 percent of world supplies, where the harvest is currently underway.
But the ICCO said production had so far not been disrupted by the epidemic as the three main countries affected - Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone - account for only 0.7 percent of the global cocoa crop. Ivory Coast, the world's biggest producer which grows some 40 percent of supplies, had "kept the disease at bay so far" and the main harvest there was underway, it said.
"Stakeholders are making all efforts to ship cocoa from the country as soon as it is available," the London-based industry group said in a statement. Cocoa prices "seem to have factored in the Ebola issue", it said, adding that it did not expect "significant disruption of the market in the medium-term". Prices reached a peak of £2,187 (2,756 euros, $2,793) per tonne in London and $3,399 in New York at the end of September. They have since fallen sharply and were at $3,112 in New York on Friday but traders are still on edge. "The outbreak of the Ebola virus in west Africa remains the main support in the cocoa market, but there are no signs that the virus is spreading to Ivory Coast or Ghana from other countries in the region," said Price Futures Group analyst Jack Scoville.
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