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FG realised $882m from cocoa export in 2010

By on April 4, 2011

The Federal Government realised $882,812,813 from the exportation of Cocoa in 2010, the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) has disclosed. The Executive Director/ Chief Executive officer of NEPC, Mr David Adulugba, presenting a key note address at the beginning of a two-day roundtable conference on pesticide residues and other harmful substances in cocoa, stated that Nigeria earned $882,812,813 from cocoa and cocoa products export in 2010 as against $662,295,907 realised in 2009.

Mr Adukugba, who stated that this accounted for about 38 per cent of the non oil export for 2010 disclosed that the bulk of this export went to EU countries such as Netherlands, Germany,Spain,Belgium and Italy .

Represented by the Director of Trade , Mr Aliu Lawan, at the event packaged by the NEPC in collaboration with the Cocoa Association of Nigeria, Mr Adulugba said the council’s desire was not only for cocoa to retain its international market share but also to expand the market through increased production of high quality cocoa and cocoa products for the export market through its various instruments such as conferences, non oil export incentives like the Export Expansion Grant for cocoa and cocoa products exporters, capacity building along the value chain among others.

He said after the conference most of the problems affecting cocoa trade, especially at the farming and processing level and the fallout from the conference would be addressed thereby improving the quality of cocoa and cocoa products from Nigeria.

The NEPC boss said ‘’Good agricultural practice, standards, training and retraining of farmers will continue to be pursued towards the same goal of retaining and increasing our market share’’.

Earlier, in her welcome address, the Director, Product Development, Mrs Omowumi Osibo, said the theme of the conference. ‘’Institutional Capacity Building on Responsible Pesticide Use in Cocoa was necessitated by new legislations on maximum residues levels on cocoa that came into Japan and other European Union countries.

Mrs Osibo, who disclosed that cocoa beans with higher concentration of pesticide residues above the maximum residue levels were rejected, stated that the effect of this rejection could be better imagined especially against the backdrop of the fact that cocoa and cocoa products had continued to top the list of Nigeria non oil export revenue in the agricultural sector while most of the rural populace in the states of production depends on it for their livelihood as well as so many others in the product value chain.

source :Tribune