ABIDJAN: Ivory Coast, the world's top cocoa grower, had sold forward 1,308,000 tonnes of 2016/17 beans by Nov. 25, a document from the Coffee and Cocoa Council (CCC) marketing board seen by Reuters showed on Wednesday.
The West African nation sells forward the bulk of its anticipated harvest via electronic auctions and uses the average sale price to set a minimum price for farmers.
The CCC forward sales figure includes 220,000 tonnes of so-called international contracts to be delivered to companies based outside of Ivory Coast. CCC and finance ministry sources confirmed the figures contained in the document and said that the CCC had now completed forward sales of the October to March main-crop harvest.
"The next sales will concern the mid-crop and the 2017/18 season. There's nothing left to sell from the 2016/17 main crop," said the CCC source.
The CCC has temporarily suspended forward sales of 2017/18 cocoa amid sliding world cocoa prices and is not expected to restart those auctions before January.
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