Two new Competitor Analysis reports recently released by the Ghana Export Promotion Authority (GEPA) indicate that massive untapped foreign market opportunities exist for both Ghanaian chocolate and cashew in-shell exporters desiring to operate at the higher end of the value chain.

This comes at a time the Authority is putting in adequate measures to facilitate the doubling of the country’s revenues from the Non-Traditional Export sector to US$5.2 billion by 2022, with the current total earnings being US$2.9 billion.

Regarding export of chocolate, Ghana’s total earnings of the product and other food preparation containing cocoa recorded annual income of US$13.4 million in 2019, representing an increase of 16.6% from the 2018 exports of the same product, which stood at US$11.5 million.

Indeed, there has been a gradual increase in the export of the products since 2017. The total earnings in that year recorded US$5.3 million with Nigeria emerging as the largest consumer of the product from Ghana since 2018, controlling about 71.7% of the Nigerian market.

Currently, the global demand of chocolate and related products is more than US$28.62 billion, indicating huge opportunities in the confectionery sector whiles the cocoa and chocolate market size was valued at US$ 44.35 billion in 2019 and is projected to reach US$ 61.34 billion by 2027, exhibiting a Compound Annual Growth Rate of 4.4% during the forecast period.

Since taking the full potential in this market is largely economies of scale, GEPA is advising exporters to focus on implementing market penetration strategies in order to attract the various untapped market.

In 2019, the total exports of chocolate from USA and China were US$1.66 billion and US$331 million respectively. The largest export destination for China in the year under was Hong Kong (22.1%) whiles the USA destination markets were Canada (37.7%), Mexico (13.2%) among others.

Some Industry analysts assert that with the implementation of the Africa Continental Free Trade Area scheduled for January 2021 – aimed at increasing intra-African trade from the current 10% to 52% by 2022 – Ghana’s total dominance in the Nigerian market over the past years must encourage Ghanaian chocolate exporters to improve on their economies of scale.

Regarding export of cashew nuts in shell from Ghana, GEPA has identified potential growth at the current top export destinations.

With an estimated untapped potential of over US$600 million for Ghana’s cashew in-shell, Ghana exported close to US$400,000 of raw cashew in shell to six countries in 2019, with Vietnam emerging as the main destination of the product from Ghana.

Although the total import value of the product into Vietnam and India recorded 1.7 million and 933, 000, Ghana’s share in these two countries for the year under review recorded 15.2% and 14% respectively.

However, countries in the sub-region namely Benin and Ivory Coast recorded significant shares than Ghana.

“Explore your existing possibilities in Vietnam and India as the market share of import from Ghana to these markets has room for growth. Given Ghana’s supply capacity vis-à-vis the demand in Vietnam and India and other variables puts Ghana’s untapped potential in these markets at US$405.97 and US$241.64 million respectively”, the report said.