President John Dramani Mahama says Ghana is on track to match or surpass Côte d’Ivoire’s benchmark of processing 50 per cent of its cocoa locally within the next four to five years.

President Mahama pointed to Ghana's progress in domestic cocoa processing while highlighting structural trade obstacles that continue to hinder African economies.

“The world economic order is rigged against Africa,” President Mahama said, adding that although the continent is capable of scaling up value addition, non-tariff barriers make exporting finished products difficult for local businesses.

He said this at a presidential session during the 60th Annual Meeting of the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the 51st Annual Meeting of the African Development Fund (ADF) in Abidjan,

“Unless they bring a processor from outside—from Europe—who comes and sets up a processing plant and gets all the regulatory things in place, an indigenous person setting up a processing plant sometimes has big difficulty in exporting finished products into the EU market and into the American market,” he explained.

Despite these hurdles, the President noted that Ghana has significantly improved its cocoa processing capacity over the years.

“From a low of about 25% processed cocoa, Ghana has risen to about 40%,” he stated.

“Côte d’Ivoire is ahead of us. They have done 50%, which is commendable. We hope that over the next four to five years, we will reach the stage of Côte d’Ivoire at 50% and push even further.”