ABIDJAN (Reuters) - Cocoa output from the world's top grower Ivory Coast slipped by 2.3 percent during the 2011-12 season compared with the previous year's bumper crop due to drier, windier weather, sector regulator CCC said on Wednesday.
Cocoa arrivals to ports in the country - the best gauge of production - totaled 1,475,756 million tonnes, down from a record 1,510,664 tonnes during the previous season, CCC director Massandje Toure told journalists.
'As explained, this is due to poor weather conditions,' she said of a figure that was higher than both Ivorian exporters and commodities analysts had anticipated.
Ivorian exports of cocoa beans and cocoa products totaled 1.43 million tonnes during the season, down just 0.6 percent from the year before, she added.
Under a sweeping sector reform, Ivory Coast has forward-sold the bulk of its new 2012-13 harvest in an effort to guarantee a fixed price for farmers and encourage reinvestment in ageing plantations. The fixed price for farmers has been set at 725 CFA francs per kilogram, or about 60 percent of the CIF market price, a government spokesman said Tuesday.
Toure confirmed on Wednesday that Ivory Coast had fixed its CIF (Cost, Insurance, Freight) cocoa price for the new 2012-13 season at 1,223 CFA francs per kilogramme. The CIF price refers to the market price of a commodity adjusted for costs, insurance and freight.
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