Abidjan — Ghana’s Cocoa Board (Cocobod) needs about $400m in bridge financing from the country’s central bank to cover its operations for the remainder of the cocoa season after its annual syndicated loan ran out early, the industry regulator’s CEO said on Tuesday. Each September, Cocobod secures an international syndicated loan to finance licensed buyers who purchase cocoa from small-holders for export. It raised $1.8bn for the 2016-17 season, but Cocobod’s new chairman, Hackman Owusu-Agyemang, said in March that the loan had been "used up". "We are looking for about $400m now to finish with our operations. We’re going to the central bank, the Bank of Ghana, to take out some cocoa bills," Cocobod CEO Joseph Boahen Aidoo told Reuters in an interview in Ivory Coast. "This is a bridge financing arrangement. We should be able to pay it back before the next crop season."
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