Brazil to import RI cocoa beans

Brazil to import RI cocoa beans

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuter): Brazil's Minister of Agriculture has given the go-ahead to three companies to import 4,000 tons of Indonesian cocoa beans, the president of one of the companies said.

"We received a fax today from the Ministry of Agriculture authorizing the imports...Between today and tomorrow we hope to finish negotiating prices," said Wady Jasmin of Joanes Industria, a subsidiary of the UK's E.D. and F. Man.

Joanes is to import 1,750 tons, Chadler a further 1,750 tons and the Brazilian arm of Swiss food giant Nestle SA[NESZn.Z] the remaining 500 tons.

Jasmin said he understood the Brazilian arm of Cargill Inc had also received a fax to import a further 2,000 tons of Indonesian cocoa from a different seller.

The four companies had approached the Agriculture Ministry after reaching a consensus with producers over a supply shortfall at the start of the Bahian midcrop, normally harvested between May and September but expected to start late this year.

Producers have given their blessing to up to 15,000 tons of cocoa imports until August.

Jasmin said the 4,000 ton shipment should leave Indonesia in the next few days. The journey is expected to take around two months.

Indonesia is currently the only country which has been pre- certified as free of risk by the Brazilian government following new regulations set down after a number of problems with the purchase of 5,000 tons of Ivorian beans in 1995.

The cocoa to be imported will come from a particular growing region in Indonesia which had been certified as free of risk after a group of Brazilian officials visited the region at the end of 1995.

The Indonesian embassy was asked by the Agriculture Ministry last month to check that conditions in the area had not changed.

Over the coming months the companies may also request the Agriculture Ministry to conduct a risk assessment survey of imports from the Ivory Coast but this is not an urgent issue, Jasmin said.