President John Dramani Mahama has announced that Ghana will stop relying on foreign financing to purchase cocoa and will also end the export of unprocessed mineral ores by 2030, as part of a major shift toward economic sovereignty and local value addition.
The announcement was made at a high-level side event on the margins of the 39th Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union in Addis Ababa, according to a statement from the Office of the President of Ghana.
President Mahama said Ghana will begin raising domestic bonds in cedis to finance cocoa purchases locally, ending long-standing arrangements under which foreign financiers fund cocoa buying using the beans as collateral. He explained that the current system has limited Ghana’s ability to supply beans to local processors and has exposed the sector to losses following fluctuations in global prices and the cedi.
Under the new policy, Ghana will purchase cocoa directly in cedis and make about 400,000 tonnes of cocoa available for domestic processing, with the aim of creating jobs and retaining more value within the local economy.
The President further announced that by 2030 Ghana will no longer export raw mineral ores, including manganese, bauxite and iron ore, insisting that all such resources must be processed locally before export.
He said the reforms form part of the broader Accra Reset agenda, which seeks to strengthen Africa’s control over its natural resources, expand industrial capacity and respond to the growing demands of the continent’s youthful population, while reducing migration pressures.
President Mahama urged African leaders to act with urgency, calling for practical implementation of agreed frameworks and proposing a coalition of willing countries to move ahead if broader consensus delays progress.