The Cocoa Marketing Company (CMC) Ghana Limited has secured firm offtake commitments across the Gulf nations of the United Arab Emirates and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for Ghana’s semi-finished cocoa products. 

A statement issued by CMC said the move strengthened the commercial footing of the country’s push toward domestic value addition under President John Dramani Mahama’s 50 per cent local processing mandate. 

It said the commitments, secured by Dr Wisdom Kofi Dogbey, CMC Managing Director, during a series of engagements with leading Gulf commodities institutions and processing bodies, were aimed at guaranteeing demand for cocoa liquor, butter, cake, and powder produced from Ghana’s existing and currently underutilised grinding capacity. 

The statement said that by locking in buyers before output ramps up, CMC was moving to close one of the mandate’s biggest commercial gaps: ensuring that higher domestic grindings convert into secured export earnings rather than unsold stock. 

It said that in Dubai, Dr Dogbey met the leadership of the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre’s (DMCC) coffee and tea membership, which runs a fully integrated model, sourcing raw materials directly from producers and converting them into finished consumer goods.  

The statement said a dedicated DMCC cocoa membership was expected to commence, and both sides treated the discussions as a template for how Ghana’s cocoa could enter comparable value chains in the region. 

Ahmad Hamza, a senior DMCC executive, described the proposed push to expand cocoa export into the UAE as a win-win. 

He characterised DMCC as an ecosystem that provides the right environment for members to operate seamlessly, citing the coffee and tea membership as proof of a working raw-material-to-finished-goods chain. 

Replicating that structure for cocoa, he said, would boost exports of Ghanaian cocoa derivatives to DMCC’s cocoa members, plugging Ghana’s semi-finished products directly into an established base of processors and traders. 

For Ghana, DMCC offers a gateway to route semi-finished cocoa into wider Middle Eastern and Asian markets, diversifying a customer base long concentrated among European grinders and strengthening CMC’s hand on origin premiums and differentials.