The amount will be paid by buyers of cocoa from the two countries, in line with a new pricing mechanism that aims to protect farmers’ incomes, while giving the world’s top cocoa growers a bigger say in how much their produce is sold for, the Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), Mr Joseph Boahen Aidoo, has told the Daily Graphic. Speaking from Abidjan, the capital of Cote d’Ivoire, where he led Ghana’s delegation on a stakeholder discussion on cocoa farmer incomes, Mr Aidoo said the $400 living income differential would then be added to the prevailing price of the crop, of which 70 per cent would be paid to the farmer at the farm gate. “For instance, today, the price is $2,300. So $400 will be added to make it $2,700 and 70 per cent of the total will be paid to the farmer,” he said. This compares favourably with the current arrangement, by which farmers are paid a portion of prevailing market prices on every tonne of cocoa they produce. <br /><b>Victory for farmers</b><br />The COCOBOD CEO said the living income differential was the outcome of a stakeholder engagement between the two countries, on the one side, and cocoa buyers, traders, suppliers and processors, on the other, in the Ivorian capital last Wednesday. The meeting was a follow-up to an earlier one held in Accra in June, during which a floor price of $2,600 was set for every tonne of cocoa from the two countries and the sale of their produce for the 2020/21 season was also suspended to enable the floor price mechanism to kick in. In a communiqué issued last Wednesday, COCOBOD and Le Conseil du Cafe-Cacao, the two state agencies that regulate the cocoa business in Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire, respectively, said the new pricing mechanism, which was underscored by the earlier floor price, was “introduced to industry players and was understood”. Mr Aidoo explained that the mechanism was effective henceforth, although anti-trust issues required that the buyers, suppliers and processors were not seen to have agreed with cocoa growers to ‘fix prices’. He described the development as a “victory for cocoa farmers” in the two countries who supplied about 65 per cent of the world’s cocoa but had long remained at the mercy of market forces to determine how much their produce was priced. “This means that the farmer is going to get a remunerative price. This will make him better and it will improve his situation because it will serve as guarantee for the farmer who, when prices drop, has nothing to fall on, if not subsidy from the government,” he said. <br /><b>Stabilisation fund </b><br /> Mr Aidoo explained that the new pricing mechanism required that farmers be paid 70 per cent of the total amount earned from every tonne of cocoa whenever the price was below $3,000 per tonne. However, whenever it moved above $3,000 per tonne, he said, the mechanism required that COCOBOD and Le Conseil du Cafe-Cacao invested the excess amount in a stabilisation fund to be used to cushion farmers whenever prices fell below $2,200 per tonne. <br /><b>Presidential directive <br /></b> Mr Aidoo said going forward, cocoa “price is actually determined by Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire”. The first of its kind, the new pricing mechanism for cocoa is the outcome of a collaboration between the two countries that was initiated by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and his Ivorian counterpart, President Alassane Ouattara, in 2017 when prices of the produce fell. The collaboration was aimed at ensuring that Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire obtained a fair price for their cocoa produce. After the initiation of the collaboration by the two Heads of State, COCOBOD and Le Conseil du Cafe-Cacao constituted a joint committee that came up with landmark agreements on how to harmonise the trading systems of the two countries to help achieve the intended objective. Key among them was the replacement of Cote d’Ivoire’s age-old system of auctioning cocoa beans on a daily basis to direct sale on the market.
The plant, which has the capacity to produce 8,000 tonnes of Polymer Modified Bitumen (PMB) and Bitumen Emulsion, is expected to be completed in two years. Presently, no oil marketing company in Ghana supplies PMB for road construction and most major road contractors import the product in bitumen containers from abroad, particularly from Cote d’Ivoire, which has been supplying 80 per cent of Ghana’s bitumen requirement. Cutting the sod to commence the construction, the Minister of Energy, Mr John Peter Amewu, lauded GOIL for its strategic decision to become a major player in the bitumen market as a producer of the best quality PMB for the country. He commended GOIL and SMB for the bold and innovative initiative and noted that it was a classic example of cooperation in development worthy of emulation in the sub-region. <br /><b>Widening portfolio</b><br />The acting Managing Director and Group Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of GOIL, Mr Kwame Osei Prempeh, said the company’s entry into the bitumen market was part of a strategy to widen its portfolio and consolidate gains already made in the fuel business. He thanked the government for creating the conducive environment for the growth of the petroleum sector and lauded the outgoing Managing Director, Mr Patrick Akorli, for his foresight and determination which had resulted in the project. <br /> He also commended the Otumfuo’s Mpaboahene, Nana Yaw Owusu, who is also a representative of SMB, for his facilitator role. <br /><b>Enhance business relation</b><br />The Managing Director of SMB of Cote d’Ivoire, Mr Mamadou Doumbia, was elated that the project had come to fruition, noting that it would ultimately enhance peaceful business relations between Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire. In attendance were representatives of SMB, the Ghana Highway Authority, the National Petroleum Authority and other stakeholders. <br /><b>Background <br /></b>The high cost of road construction in Ghana, estimated at GH¢1 million per kilometre of asphalt road, is mainly attributed to the unavailability of bitumen in Ghana.<br /><br />GOIL and its partners believe that the local production of bitumen will help reduce the cost of the raw material and road construction significantly.<br /><br />
The new facility, having gained approval from the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA), will operate under the Global Dialysis Group Limited in Accra as a subsidiary of Engisys. At an official inauguration of the facility on July 4 in Accra, the Managing Director (MD) of Engisys Limited, Nana Yaw Appiah, indicated that the new facility would play a crucial role in providing more access to people who required treatment at dialysis centres as there were only a handful in the country. Engisys Limited secured financial assistance from Access Bank’s German Desk Ghana — Financial Support and Solutions. “Today, we are excited that our financing partners, in particular Access Bank and the Delegation of German Industry and Commerce in Ghana (DEG) through The German Desk Ghana have supported us to establish this modern renal centre here in Ghana,” he said. <br /><b>WHO report</b><br />According to recent reports from the World Health Organisation (WHO), there were over 2.4 million people worldwide receiving renal dialysis treatment and the number continues to grow at a rate of about eight per cent annually. The number of people with acute and chronic renal failure in the West African sub-region has increased tremendously and Ghana is no exception. <br /><b>German Desk Ghana’s role</b><br />The Managing Director of Access Bank Ghana, Mr Olumide Olatunji, indicated that the German Desk Ghana – Financial Support and Solutions was offering the needed support to small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) to help their businesses meet their obligations to clients and customers. <br /> <br />“Access Bank’s expertise in providing customer need-based solutions across all its operating countries, including Ghana, has been at the core of our business model. “Through a harnessed international partnership with renowned agencies, we are helping our customers access more than banking to stay competitive in their various sectors,” he noted. <br /><b>Engisys</b><br />Engisys Limited is a biomedical engineering company with deep knowledge in clinical engineering, supply, installation and maintenance of medical equipment and high quality medical consumables. It delivers products such as medical imaging, renal dialysis, clinical laboratory, infection control and medical gas. Engisys has strategic partnerships with reputable healthcare brands such as General Electric Health Care, B. Braun Avitum, Stahl Waschereimaschinen, Norav Medical and Mindray.<br /><br /> <b>The German Desk — Financial Support and Solutions<br /></b>Access Bank, DE — und Entwicklungsgesellschaft and the Delegation of German Industry and Commerce (AHK) launched in February, this year, a new service for German firms and their local partners in Ghana called “The German Desk Ghana — Financial Support and Solutions”.
The MoU empowers both parties to set up a strategic think-tank composed of officers from both agencies and partnered stakeholders who will devise a three-year strategy covering areas of mutual interest. The Chief Executive Officer of GIPC, Mr Yofi Grant , signed on behalf of GIPC while Mr Michael Grech, the Director of Malta Enterprise, initialled for his agency. A release issued in Accra said, “Under the MoU, GIPC and Malta Enterprise will collaborate to set up information sharing mechanisms by regularly exchanging information on economic and trade updates, laws and regulations, policy measures, industrial standards and trends, market analysis reports, exhibitions and fora, trade leads as well as investment projects in Ghana and Malta. “They will also organise business delegations related to trade and or investment to the country of either party as well as support and assist visiting business delegations organised by the other party. Both parties have agreed to co-host various events, including economic and trade policy dialogues between government agencies and business delegations in both countries, among others”. The release said the signing of the MoU followed the recent state visit to Malta by President Akufo-Addo, where he held bilateral talks with his Maltese counterpart. “During his visit, President Akufo-Addo urged Maltese companies to take advantage of the new impetus given to Ghana-Malta relations by the reciprocal visits and invest in Ghana. Mr Yofi Grant, welcomed the proposed projects discussed with the delegation adding that Ghana was open to finding strategic partners and investors to grow its economy and for mutual benefit.
Out of the three blocks put up for the first bidding round, four companies expressed interest in one block, only one company expressed interest in block 2 while no company showed interest in the last block. Deputy Minister, Mohammed Amin Adam told Citi Business News that the government has done its assessment on the responses it received from the companies and has taken steps to address them. “Basically, two major issues emerged, the first one is that the data that we already have on those blocks was not comprehensive enough and therefore they didn’t have enough data to enable them to make commercial decisions so we have to improve on the quality of the data,” he stated. According to him the second issue that came up was the size of the acreage, which he said was too small for most of the companies compared to the offers they get from other oil-rich countries. “For some of them, their exploratory strategies require them to operate in larger acreages and there are a number of countries that will give larger acreages to companies. If they compare what they get as per their strategies with what they were offered, our acreages or blocks were smaller in size and therefore it was inconsistent with their strategies” The Deputy Minister stated further that his outfit will take a decision after discussions with stakeholders and consultants to decide whether to revise the size of the blocks for future bidding rounds to make Ghana’s upstream sector more competitive. Source: Citi Business News
This rate represents a 0.9 percentage point increase in the producer inflation relative to the rate recorded in May 2019 which was 6.7 percent. The Producer Price Index measures the average change over time in the prices received by domestic producers for the production of their goods and services. Speaking at a Press Conference, a Deputy Government Statistician, David Kombat explained that the increase in the PPI was mainly due to activities in the mining and quarrying sector. “The producer price inflation in the Mining and Quarrying sub-sector increased by 7.3 percentage points over the May 2019 rate of 15.1 percent to record 22.4 percent in June 2019,” he said. Mr. Kombat explained that the producer inflation for Manufacturing which constitutes more than two-thirds of total industry decreased by 0.1 percentage points to record 6.1 percent. On the utilities sub-sector, he stated that it recorded inflation rate of 1.2 percent indicating an increase of 0.1 percentage point over the rate recorded in May 2019. During the month of June 2019, eight out of the sixteen major groups in the manufacturing sub-sector recorded inflation rates higher than the sector average of 6.1 percent. Manufacture of machinery and equipment n.e.c. recorded the highest inflation rate of 23.5 percent, while Tanning and dressing of leather recorded inflation rate of 0.0 percent. Source: Citi Business News