A higher cocoa farmgate price in Ivory Coast is unlikely to stem smuggling of beans into Ghana and neighbouring countries where buyers are prepared to pay more, exporters said on Wednesday.
The world's top cocoa grower on Tuesday set a minimum indicative farmgate price of 400 CFA francs ($0.735) per kg of "good fermented" cocoa for the first three months of the 2005/06 season.
The new price is higher than the 390 CFA francs set by the Coffee and Cocoa Bourse for the whole of the 2004/05 campaign but about 25 percent lower than the $1 per kg cocoa farmers are receiving in neighbouring Ghana, the second biggest producer.
The current difference between prices in Ivory Coast and Ghana, where the farmgate price is guaranteed, is about 145 CFA francs.
A second British exporter said that the Ivorian farmgate price was too high and did not reflect world market prices, which are under pressure because of expectations of a strong crop from West African producing countries.
Because the Ivorian price is indicative, exporters and buyers are allowed to pay less. Despite the new price, exporters at the port of Abidjan were offering on Wednesday 360 CFA francs per kg, and buyers were not paying more than 325 CFA in the bush.
According to estimates by industry sources, some 50,000 tonnes of cocoa crossed the border into Ghana during the 2004/05 campaign. Another 60,000 tonnes were smuggled into Burkina Faso, Guinea and Liberia through the rebel-held north of the country, split in two since a 2002 civil war.