Indonesia rules out joining cocoa body

Jakarta, July 25: Indonesia reiterated last week it had no immediate plans to join the International Cocoa Organisation (ICCO) as such a move might hamper its bid to become the world's number one producer. "ICCO has rules which control production. We don't want our effort to become the world's top producer hampered by entering to ICCO," said Djohan Syahteri, director-general of foreign economic relations at the foreign affairs ministry.

"Indonesia has a great potential to become the world's top producer because we have huge areas which can be used to expand cocoa plantations," he told reporters. ICCO groups major cocoa consuming and producing nations. Syahteri said that unlike other top producers such as Ivory Coast and Ghana, Indonesia had no problems in finding areas to be planted with cocoa trees.

Ivory Coast is the world's number one producer, followed by Ghana. Indonesia is the world's third largest producer but traders believed its position might drop soon because rains were expected to cut thisyear's output set at 325,000 tonnes by the Indonesian Cocoa Association (Askindo).