The Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Chamber of Agribusiness, Anthony Morison, has called on the government to prioritize the creation of a local cocoa and chocolate industry, saying the country is missing out on significant economic opportunities by exporting raw cocoa.
Speaking on TV3’s Business Focus on Monday, 13 October 2025, Mr Morison said it is time Ghana took deliberate steps to build a technologically advanced cocoa-processing sector capable of competing globally.
“We produce a lot, but the industry is not here in Ghana, it’s in America,” he noted.
He expressed concern that although Ghana is one of the world’s top cocoa producers, it continues to export mostly unprocessed beans, limiting value addition and job creation.
“We are only producing agriculture-based raw materials. It’s high time we deliberately created a cocoa industry that is technologically driven,” Mr Morison said.
The CEO proposed innovative marketing ideas, such as enhancing Ghana’s cocoa presence at key international gateways.
“I would have wished that the Cocoa Marketing Board had a beautiful alley at Kotoka International Airport, where you see the ambiance of cocoa,” he added.
His comments come in response to the government’s recent policy shift to export cocoa only in processed form — a move aimed at increasing local value addition.
Mr Morison welcomed the policy but emphasised the need for complementary strategies to ensure its success, including investment in innovation, marketing, and infrastructure.
“We have the edge and the raw materials available,” he said. “So we need to find a way to create innovations and marketing strategies that will advance our global marketing opportunities, but we are not doing that.”
Ghana is the second-largest producer of cocoa globally, after Côte d’Ivoire, but captures only a small fraction of the multi-billion-dollar global chocolate market.
