The chief of the International Cocoa Organisation (ICCO) revised down the 2006/2007 (September-October) global cocoa deficit to between 100,000 and 125,000 tonnes and expected global output to rebound in the next crop year.
"It turns out to be a little less than we've expected before," executive director Jan Vingerhoets told Reuters on Wednesday ahead of an international cocoa conference on the island resort of Bali.
"At the moment, I would expect it to be about, say, a 100,000 to 125,000 tonne deficit. It's revised down. That's my best estimate," he said. The London-based ICCO estimated a global cocoa deficit of 125,000 to 150,000 tonnes earlier this month. It estimated a global cocoa surplus of 192,000 tonnes in the 2005/06 crop year.
"If the weather is good next year, we would expect a strong recovery of production. I would not expect a deficit for next year, unless we would have a very strong increase in grindings next year. That's always possible but grindings have been doing very well in the past five, six years," he said.
Dealers said dry weather from late 2006 until the first few months of 2007 had harmed development of cocoa crops in West Africa. In Southeast Asia, heavy rains have damaged the crop in Indonesia, the world's third-largest producer after Ivory Coast and Ghana.
"There's been dry wind blowing from the Sahara. And there was a bit of a dry spell, and that together had a negative impact on production," said Vingerhoets, referring to the crop in West Africa.
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