The Cocoa Marketing Company (CMC) has secured multi-year offtake agreements with leading confectionery and beverage companies in the Middle East for Ghana’s premium value-added cocoa products.
The agreements will see CMC supply significant quantities of semi-finished cocoa products to buyers in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, in a move expected to expand Ghana’s export market and support local cocoa processing.
The development is also expected to create new opportunities for domestic processors while advancing the government’s industrialisation agenda through increased value addition.
The deal follows engagements with chocolate manufacturers and other industry players in the Middle East and Gulf region led by the Managing Director of CMC, Dr Wisdom Dogbey, to strengthen international partnerships and widen the market for Ghanaian processed cocoa products.
As part of the engagements, Dr Dogbey held discussions with officials of the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC) to explore opportunities to connect Ghanaian cocoa processors with traders and manufacturers across the Middle East and Asia.
He said the agreements would help create jobs, increase local processing and enable Ghana to capture a larger share of the global cocoa value chain.
Dr Dogbey noted that Ghana had for decades depended largely on traditional European markets for cocoa exports but said the latest arrangements represented a shift towards value addition and diversification of export destinations.
“The offtake arrangement covers semi-finished cocoa products, including cocoa liquor, cocoa butter, cocoa cake and cocoa powder, providing guaranteed demand for products from Ghana’s existing processing facilities,” he said.
He added that the agreements would provide the certainty needed to encourage investment in local processing, strengthen the cocoa sector and generate more employment opportunities.
In Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, CMC secured commitments to supply cocoa products to support the country’s expanding confectionery and food-processing industries, in line with the Saudi Vision 2030 economic diversification programme.
Dr Dogbey described the agreements as a major milestone in CMC’s strategy to diversify export markets, increase the use of local processing capacity and ensure sustainable demand for Ghanaian cocoa products.
The agreements align with the government’s policy requiring at least 50 per cent of Ghana’s cocoa harvest to be processed locally from the 2026/27 crop season.
The policy seeks to retain more value within the country, create jobs and reduce reliance on the export of raw cocoa beans.
Ghana, the world’s second-largest cocoa producer, has historically exported a significant proportion of its cocoa beans in raw form, limiting its ability to benefit fully from the global cocoa value chain.
By processing more cocoa into products such as liquor, butter, cake and powder before export, the country aims to increase earnings and expand its manufacturing base.
To support the initiative, the government is reviving state-owned processing facilities, including the Cocoa Processing Company (CPC), while encouraging private sector investment to increase processing capacity.
