World cocoa producers to prod RI into group

World cocoa producers to prod RI into group

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP): World cocoa producers decided here yesterday to dispatch a ministerial delegation to prod Indonesia into joining a producers' grouping and cooperate to limit supply and lift prices, officials said.

"It will not be fair to ask us to rationalize supply when Indonesia is enjoying the fruit of all our labor," said a senior delegate at the end of the three-day 57th General Assembly of the 13-member Cocoa Producers' Alliance (CPA) here.

"We have been talking in vain for three years about a production management plan. Everyone is asking for higher quotas ... We know the plan is not going to work without Indonesia," the delegate said.

The assembly resolved that a CPA ministerial delegation be sent to persuade Indonesia to join the alliance so that a production management plan of the fifth 1993 International Cocoa Agreement could be implemented successfully.

Indonesia, which produced an estimated 220,000 tons of cocoa last year, ranks as the world's fourth largest producer.

"It is envisaged that Jakarta's output could grow to 500,000 tons a year by the end of the decade to become the second largest after the Ivory Coast," said a delegate from Malaysia.

Malaysia's Primary Industries Minister Lim Keng Yaik, in opening the assembly Monday, had called on Indonesia to join the CPA.

"We should spare no effort to bring Indonesia and all other producing countries together in solidarity to avoid being manipulated," another delegate at the meeting said.

Lim on Monday called for the formation of an International Cocoa Study Group to collect up-to-date data to prevent any manipulation of supply and demand figures aimed at depressing the market.

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad last week accused chocolate makers in developed nations of withholding benefits from cocoa producers in developing nations, saying: "It is another classic example of the rich living off the poor."