Ivorian cocoa reform to impose buy quotas

Planned reforms to Ivory Coast's cocoa sector will impose quarterly quotas on exporters' purchases to prevent big players from using their dominant position to manipulate the market, according to the latest draft obtained by Reuters on Friday.. The reforms in the world's top grower, which supplies 40 percent of the world market, will also scrap individually negotiated tax breaks to some exporters with local grinding capacity.
The export tax is 14.6 percent, but some exporters who grind beans into semi-finished cocoa products locally managed to negotiate a discount, which will now be removed.. And it will require exporters to pay a 10 percent deposit on all cocoa purchases from the state, the document from the agriculture ministry says, though it does not give details on how quotas would be worked out beyond saying they would apply to all exporters.
President Alassane Ouattara's government is attempting to introduce sweeping reforms to the sector with the core aim of guaranteeing its hundreds of thousands of smallholders a minimum selling price.. The reform will also need the approval of the World Bank.. The reforms will effectively end a decade of liberalisation, which critics say left farmers beholden to the whims of international commodity markets, creating uncertainty that discouraged investment in their plantations and left the industry in disarray.