The Produce Monitoring Board (PMB) has reviewed the price of cocoa upwards from Le. 9,000 to Le.13,000 per kilo for the 2015/2016 crop season, the agency stated in an announcement. The price of coffee remains unchanged at Le. 6,000 a kilo. The PMB is the government agency responsible to regulate the prices of cocoa, coffee and other agricultural commodities.
“Cocoa price has increased because we are approaching the tail end of the buying season and there is a high demand for the product,” Henry Yamba Kamara Managing Director of the Sierra Leone Produce Marketing Company (SLPMC) said in an interview last Thursday. SLPMC is the government-owned company buying cocoa, coffee, palm oil and other agricultural products for export and domestic consumption. While the indicative price of cocoa stands at Le13,000 a kilo some buyers pay up to Le15,000 a kilo.
Buyers often pay a little more above the indicative price to attract the market. When the indicative price was Le.9,000 per kilo in the early part of the 2015/2016 crop season, some buyers were paying up to Le13,000 to beat their competitors. Despite the competitiveness of the market, SLPMC was about to reach its target of 50 metric tons for the 2014/2015 buying session and will soon start to export the grade one cocoa to its partner in Switzerland.
Cocoa is still Sierra Leone’s major agricultural export and export level ranges between 15,000 and 25,000 metric tons a year according to Central Bank data.
Monday January 25, 2016