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ABIDJAN (Reuters) - The second wave of the global coronavirus pandemic has hit Ivory Coast’s cocoa trading and exports hard, dashing hopes of an early recovery from the first wave, the director of the country’s cocoa regulator CCC said on Sunday.
Farmers break cocoa pods at a cocoa farm in Soubre, Ivory Coast January 6, 2021. Picture taken January 6, 2021. REUTERS/Luc Gnago
Cocoa bean stocks from the main crop harvest are piling up in farm warehouses and at the West African country’s export terminal since December due to a slump in demand from its principal export destinations in Europe, Asia and the United States.
Over 300 leading companies said on Tuesday they would work together to help hundreds of thousands of merchant sailors stuck on ships for many months due to COVID-19 in a crisis that risks creating more dangers at sea.
Pirates off Nigeria's coast kidnapped 15 sailors from a Turkish-crewed container ship in the Gulf of Guinea on Saturday in a brazen and violent attack that was farther from shore than usual.
Ivory Coast's large backlog of unsold cocoa could cause an around 10% slump in the guaranteed price for the 2020/21 mid-crop and jeopardise the outlook for next season, industry sources said, amid a slowdown in demand linked to COVID-19.