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Ivory Coast Cuts Budget As Cocoa Decline Slashes Export Earnings

By Steve Wynne-Jones
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Ivory Coast Cuts Budget As Cocoa Decline Slashes Export Earnings

Ivory Coast cut its budget after the slump in cocoa prices cost the West African nation’s economy 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) in lost export earnings over the past year, President Alassane Ouattara said.

Annual spending is being reduced by 250 billion francs ($413 million), Ouattara said on state television Thursday in the commercial capital, Abidjan.

“This is a considerable amount,” Ouattara said. “Ivory Coast is going through very, very difficult times.”

Cocoa futures in London are trading near the lowest level in four years as a rebound in production leaves the global market oversupplied. Plummeting prices are hurting the finances of producing nations and incomes for hundreds of thousands small-scale farmers.

Ivory Coast is the top grower of the beans. Neighboring Ghana, the second-biggest producer, lost $1 billion of potential exports earnings because of the price drop, the industry regulator said last month.

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Ouattara also said that disgruntled soldiers who led a mutiny over pay in January, paralyzing several cities throughout the country, have given up all their financial demands.

News by Bloomberg, edited by ESM. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.

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