ABIDJAN, Côte d’Ivoire – The ICCO Expert Working Group on Stocks (EWGS) met on Thursday 27 January 2022 to review the level of world cocoa bean stocks. The EWGS is composed of experts in the cocoa field who meet once a year, at the invitation of the ICCO, to review and analyse the results of the ICCO’s annual survey of cocoa bean stocks held in European warehouses as well as assess the level of global cocoa bean stocks.
The survey is conducted every year (since 2000) and aims to improve transparency in the cocoa market.
Notes: Totals may differ from sum of constituents due to rounding
* Published in the ICCO Quarterly Bulletin of Cocoa Statistics, Volume XLVII, No. 4, Cocoa Year 2020/21
** Do not include stocks data from South-East Asia
*** Do not include data from Brazil
The EWGS now notes that, compared to the revised gap of 397,000 tonnes for the 2019/20 cocoa year, the current assessment indicates that the gap between the estimated cocoa bean stocks worldwide and the ICCO’s statistically-derived stocks data has declined to 160,000 tonnes for the 2020/21 cocoa year.
This reduction is partly due to the inclusion of stocks from South-East Asia in the current assessment. However, the non-availability of stocks from some important producing countries contributed to the current divergence.
While the ICCO Secretariat maintains, so far, its supply surplus estimate of 212,000 tonnes for 2020/21 as published in its latest QBCS, it may revise that figure in its next Bulletin due at the end of February 2022, taking into account the outcome of this survey.
