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."