Cadbury moves production from Ghana to Nigeria

....to take advantage of a 20% tax rebate
UK food and beverage giant Cadbury Schweppes has restructured its West African operations, moving production from its Ghanaian factory to Nigeria to take advantage of tax rebates on exports.

"Our factory in Ghana has been closed down and all the local demands for our key products in Ghana will be exported from Nigeria," Bunmi Oni, who doubles as the managing director of Cadbury Nigeria and chairman of Cadbury Ghana, told Reuters.

"This is to take advantage of a 20% tax rebate on exportation of finished products from Nigeria to the West African sub-region."

Oni said Cadbury Nigeria had started building an extension to its Ikeja food and drink factory, adding that the expansion would increase Cadbury Nigeria’s profitability by 75% by the end of the year.

Cadbury Nigeria recorded turnover of 16.02bn naira (US$123.3m) for 2002, compared to 13.23bn naira for 2001.

The division’s 2002 profits after tax rose 36% year-on-year to 2.25bn naira.