{"id":460196,"date":"2018-01-31T17:11:00","date_gmt":"2018-01-31T17:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ghana-mma.com\/2018\/01\/31\/maintaining-producer-price-of-cocoa-unsustainable-finance-minister\/"},"modified":"2018-01-31T17:11:00","modified_gmt":"2018-01-31T17:11:00","slug":"maintaining-producer-price-of-cocoa-unsustainable-finance-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/01\/31\/maintaining-producer-price-of-cocoa-unsustainable-finance-minister\/","title":{"rendered":"Maintaining producer price of cocoa unsustainable &#8211; Finance Minister"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div id=\"medsection1\">\n<!-- End of html generated by this->header() --><\/p>\n<p class=\"floatLeft\">Business News of Wednesday, 31 January 2018<\/p>\n<p class=\"floatRight\"><strong>Source: <\/strong>citifmonline.com<\/p>\n<p>2018-01-31<\/p>\n<div class=\"article-left\">\n<p class=\"article-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/42808760.295.jpg\" alt=\"Ken Ofori Attah{ Fresh\" title=\"Ken Ofori Attah{ Fresh\" width=\"295\" height=\"206\" \/><span class=\"image_caption\"><span>Ken Ofori-Atta, Finance Minister<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"noPrint\">\n<div id=\"537626303\" style=\"width:300;height:250;margin:0;padding:0\">\n<p>\t\t  <noscript><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"b2ad7fa7fd\" name=\"b2ad7fa7fd\" src=\"http:\/\/ghanaweb-d.openx.net\/w\/1.0\/afr?auid=537626303&amp;cb=151125817929577\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" width=\"300\" height=\"250\"><a href=\"\/\/ghanaweb-d.openx.net\/w\/1.0\/rc?cs=b2ad7fa7fd&amp;cb=151125817929577\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/1517418660_123_ai\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/iframe><\/noscript><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p style=\"clear:right\">Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta is calling for a relook at government\u2019s decision to peg the producer price of cocoa at 7,600 cedis for cocoa farmers.<\/p>\n<p>The move, according to him is due to declining price of the commodity on the world market.<\/p>\n<p>Cocoa price has fallen by over 30 percent from 2,950 dollars per tonne in 2017 to about 1900 dollars.<\/p>\n<p>Government decided to maintain the producer price to Ghanaian farmers despite Ivory Coast reducing its price.<\/p>\n<p>Already, government is said to have lost about one billion dollars due to the sharp decline of the price of cocoa since 2016.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to journalists on the issue, Ken Ofori-Atta was of the view that maintaining the price won\u2019t be sustainable.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think it is a fundamental question that we may need a national conversation on. If you have cocoa prices at maybe 2,900 dollars a tonne and it plummets to 1,800 dollars a tonne, and you have pegged your produce price at 7,600 cedis, you have a problem,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Ofori-Atta insisted that there must a more productive way to hold and sustain the cocoa sector since it is critical to the economy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCan the country continue to subsidize that, I think there needs to be some real sober minds thinking through how we will liberalize it. It\u2019s a quandary but I think it\u2019s a national conversation to be had,\u201d he said stressing that the current move cannot go on.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen you have lost 40 to 45 percent but then you still paying then we need to take a relook at the issues. So those are some of challenges that we have as a nation. There are 65,000 farmers are very important to us\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><!-- uploaded by: -1 updated by: -1 --><\/p>\n<p><!-- Start of html generated by this->footer() -->\n<\/div>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a style=\"display:none\" rel=\"follow\" href=\"http:\/\/megatheme.ir\/\" title=\"\u0642\u0627\u0644\u0628 \u0648\u0631\u062f\u067e\u0631\u0633\">\u0642\u0627\u0644\u0628 \u0648\u0631\u062f\u067e\u0631\u0633<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Business News of Wednesday, 31 January 2018 Source: citifmonline.com 2018-01-31 Ken Ofori-Atta, Finance Minister Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta is calling for a relook at government\u2019s decision to peg the producer price of cocoa at 7,600 cedis for cocoa farmers. The move, according to him is due to declining price of the commodity on the world [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":402752,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-460196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=460196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460196\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}