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Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland

face2faceafrica.com

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Re: Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland

#121

Post by fogihujy »

eloisant wrote: post #89
fogihujy wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first response will probably be for the chocolate producers to try to source the raw materials from other sources. This may or may not result in production ramping up elsewhere, or even new producers appearing as increased prices could make production financially viable in places it previously wasn't. Depending on how the markets react, prices may go up, and many of the really cheap brands could disappear from th…

Considering Switzerland is less than 9 millions people, their total consumption is a drop in the ocean of the global market so I'm don't think protectionist measures would change much. And I don't see why the big markets (EU, US) would want to protect Swiss companies.

The big markets won't care about Swiss chocolate. It's far more likely that Swiss chocolate producers will simply focus on the high-end market and leave it at that.

Now, if other African countries tried doing this to the EU and re. other raw materials on the other hand...

Re: Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland

#122

Post by true_religion »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #56
jariel wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So Saudi Arabia, UAE, Canada and Saudi Arabia are 'stuck' selling natural resources? I think it's probably a much better plant to extract a good deal of wealth from the natural resource and invest it in other areas of higher value creation, even in the same vertical. There's a good chance that Ghana's policies are needlessly constrained. More obviously there are 100 things Ghana could do to improve living conditions…

Other points are already addressed in different comments, but to address this one: > Ghana doesn't have all of the layers of industry necessary to support development and export of products i.e. there are no market buyers at any reasonable price. Per the article, they literally control half of the world's cocoa. This means they get to define what "a reasonable price" is, as long as the rest of the world wants to keep…

The last time Ghana blocked cocoa sales, the European powers responded by creating plantations in other countries to break Ghanas monopoly of the supply. Then they went a step further in researching and marketing low cocoa chocolate so their domestic population would be less reliant on cocoa.

Agricultural luxury goods are one area where it’s hard to continually push a monopoly advantage.

That said, I think that if Ghana can take the short term repercussions, then the country will come out ahead. It can become to chocolate, what France is to wine. But that would require heavy marketing in order to change people’s perception about what kind of chocolate is most delicious.

Re: Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland

#123

Post by meepmorp »

stan_rogers wrote: post #83
meepmorp wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they said no whataboutism, fam

I can't tell whether or not your response was meant to be in jest, but "whataboutism" is a variety of tu quoque involving a third party.

What about my post makes you think I don’t know that?

Re: Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland

#124

Post by throwaway9870 »

m12k wrote: post #15

I'm reading the book The Divide at the moment. It makes the argument that it takes time and the right conditions to build up an industry - infrastructure needs to be built, education and a skilled labor pool with the necessary know-how as well. To begin with, a fledgling industry in a developing country cannot compete with those of already industrialized countries - these are already so effective that they can underc…

Perhaps, but Asia does pretty well. Korea, China, Taiwan, Vietnam, etc. all did amazing development in the last 30-60 years. The reality is that some cultures are better at it than others. Compare China to India for example.

Re: Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland

#125

Post by yorwba »

audunw wrote: post #119
killtimeatwork wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's where China was smart I guess. They didn't sign any treaty which forced them into free trade or IP protection, but instead slowly allowed their industries to build up via IP theft and strong protectionism. Now they have giant companies on par with the West's. Whereas everyone who joined the EU in the decade of 2000 (and the Washington Consensus before that in the nineties) is now a pawn of the Western capital…

I really think China is making a huge mistake actually. See how TSMC (Taiwan) and Samsung are free to buy ASMLs EUV machines, while China is blocked. Part of that is due to their rampant IP theft. Why sell machines to China if they're just going to copy them? China also messed up big time by enforcing their 1 child policy, and taking so long to open up and industrialize. They're far behind economically compared to wh…

> See how TSMC (Taiwan) and Samsung are free to buy ASMLs EUV machines, while China is blocked. Part of that is due to their rampant IP theft. Why sell machines to China if they're just going to copy them?

ASML's machines aren't something you can just copy by buying one of them. (You'd do better by hiring ex-ASML engineers to teach you how to do it.) And ASML would've sold their EUV equipment (just as they continue to sell previous-generation machines) if their export license had been extended by the Dutch government, but the US applied pressure to make sure that didn't happen.

You say China took too long to open up and industrialize. Well, they are open to buy from ASML and industrialize with their help, but others are closing that door...

Re: Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland

#126

Post by klmadfejno »

audunw wrote: post #119
killtimeatwork wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's where China was smart I guess. They didn't sign any treaty which forced them into free trade or IP protection, but instead slowly allowed their industries to build up via IP theft and strong protectionism. Now they have giant companies on par with the West's. Whereas everyone who joined the EU in the decade of 2000 (and the Washington Consensus before that in the nineties) is now a pawn of the Western capital…

I really think China is making a huge mistake actually. See how TSMC (Taiwan) and Samsung are free to buy ASMLs EUV machines, while China is blocked. Part of that is due to their rampant IP theft. Why sell machines to China if they're just going to copy them? China also messed up big time by enforcing their 1 child policy, and taking so long to open up and industrialize. They're far behind economically compared to wh…

> I really think China is making a huge mistake actually. See how TSMC (Taiwan) and Samsung are free to buy ASMLs EUV machines, while China is blocked. Part of that is due to their rampant IP theft. Why sell machines to China if they're just going to copy them?

Because China can waggle a huge target market to tempt people into repeating well documented mistakes

Re: Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland

#127

Post by nasmorn »

andrepd wrote: post #75
arethuza wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They seem to be trying to develop their tourist industry - I keep getting adverts for holidays there!

It's possibly one of countries in the world I'm least interested in visiting.

Where else to go to a good oldfashioned lashing?

Re: Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland

#128

Post by ClumsyPilot »

dahfizz wrote: post #90
throwaway210222 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I often hear this [phrasing] in the 'first world' and surely you don't 'allow' or 'disallow' internal policies to an sovereign nation?" Forget about the third-world, right now the USA is not-allowing Germany the right to build a pipeline with Russia! First-world - check, sovereign - check, allies - check.

> the USA is not-allowing Germany the right to build a pipeline with Russia! The USA is threatening trade sanctions if Germany builds the pipeline. I would not call that "not-allowing". That seems to be OP's whole point. The US is responding as a sovereign nation to actions of other sovereign nations. Phraseology like "allow" and "disallow" are not accurate. If Germany does the cost-benefit analysis and decides to ca…

The law is threatening fines if you exceed the speed limit. By that logic.

Are allowed to break the law? Are you not?

Re: Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland

#129

Post by Blackstone4 »

skocznymroczny wrote: post #107
jopsen wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are those supermarkets really all that French or Belgian anymore? In practice, many large companies are owned by investors from all over the world looking for diversification.

The specific ownership and the details are irrelevant, what matters is that a large chunk of their profits is extracted out of the country and doesn't get reinvested.

Is that really true? The international supermarkets may chose to invest by open new stores....secondly, they had to buy the local supermarkets in the first place...that went somewhere...maybe that was reinvested locally. It is not clear cut.

Re: Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland

#130

Post by tashoecraft »

m12k wrote: post #15

I'm reading the book The Divide at the moment. It makes the argument that it takes time and the right conditions to build up an industry - infrastructure needs to be built, education and a skilled labor pool with the necessary know-how as well. To begin with, a fledgling industry in a developing country cannot compete with those of already industrialized countries - these are already so effective that they can underc…

The book “How Asian Works” touched on this as well. A combination of promoting/subsidizing local industries whilst pushing them to be competitive on the global stage can do great things
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