Exports of cocoa beans from Indonesia's main growing area of Sulawesi island fell in January against the same month a year ago as a result of wet weather, data showed on Wednesday. Indonesian exporters shipped 11,634.66 tonnes in January, from 25,920 tonnes in the same month of 2010, data from the Indonesia Cocoa Association showed.
"Still not much cocoa available in January because the weather is very bad," Dakhri Sanusi, secretary general at the association told Reuters. Last month Sanusi told Reuters that cocoa output in Indonesia could fall 5 percent this year as extreme weather and heavy rain caused by La Nina disrupts agriculture and the production of other commodities.
Indonesia, the world's third biggest cocoa bean producer after Ivory Coast and Ghana, was late last year forecast to produce 500,000 tonnes of cocoa beans in 2010, down from 550,000 tonnes in 2009, the Association said. But the unusually long rainy season has wreaked havoc on most of the country's plantation crops, tightening supply to global markets and driving up prices.
Southeast Asia's largest economy also slapped an export tax on its cocoa beans from April last year in a bid to divert more fermented beans to local grinders. The tax ranges from zero to a maximum 15 percent on all cocoa bean exports, calculated on a base price set monthly by the trade ministry. ICE benchmark March cocoa fell $39 to close at $3,313 per tonne on Tuesday, just below last week's one-year peak of $3,420 per tonne. Cocoa prices have also rallied in response to the export ban called by Ivory Coast presidential claimant Alassane Ouattara on January 23, aimed to starve tax revenues from his rival for the presidency, Laurent Gbagbo.