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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

#151

Post by jeromegv »

barry-cotter wrote: post #50
m000 wrote: post #32

I really hope Ivory Coast will join Ghana on this, as they did for the LID bonus case. Together they account for over 2/3 of cocoa production. So, they can pretty much reshape the cocoa/chocolate market and break out of colonialistic trade agreements for the benefit of their people.

If the Swiss can buy from 1/3 of global producers that’s still plenty to satisfy the demand. And it’s not like the world is short of areas where cocoa would grow. It's not so long since Vietnam went from not growing coffee to being one of the world’s largest producers in under 20 years. I bet they could do it with cocoa too.

There's actually a worldwide shortage of cocoa, it's apparently not that simple.

Re: Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland

#152

Post by jeromegv »

lmm wrote: post #6

Feels like a pretty confused article, diving back and forth between cocoa and coronavirus vaccines even while saying they're unrelated. Building up local industry sounds like a good approach for the long term (though, contra the article, inevitably at a short term cost); the simplistic free trade arguments discount the value of developing industry within the country. A ban is a very blunt instrument though; a tariff…

That was indeed a very confusing article to read, I couldn't finish it.

Re: Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland

#153

Post by haspok »

killtimeatwork wrote: post #87
oblio wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So the book argues that when developing countries are pressured into free trade agreements This should have been obvious since the Opium Wars and the Opening of Japan (see Commodore Matthew Perry). All developed countries are pro free trade for markets where they are strong and fiercely protectionist where they are not (or they consider those markets strategic priorities). I'm from Romania. Romania joined the EU in…

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…

How can you compare China (population ~1.4bn) to any EU country (population average ~10mn - several orders of magnitude less, even in the case of the largest country)? Size is an advantage, not a disadvantage!

Pretty much none of the tactics would have worked for a small country that China played successfully. If you are small you can choose to be independent and protectionist - and remain very poor, or join the party, but be pushed into the corner, hoping that with time the playing field will level out somewhat.

Re: Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland

#154

Post by flavius29663 »

enriquto wrote: post #80
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…

> So much like we allow children time to learn in school before we expect them to compete in the job market, we should allow developing countries to employ protectionistic policies This sounds a bit paternalistic and condescending. I guess that first and foremost the "first world" should stop financing horrible dictatorships and wars in the ex-colonies. That would be a good, honest start.

> should stop financing horrible dictatorships

When you do that and even take down the dictator (Gadafi), you end up with a worse government, or no government at all. We can all agree Saddam Hussein was a horrible dictator supported by the US, look at Iraq now, is it better off without Saddam?

There is no clear cut, and it seems like whatever the west is doing or abstaining from doing it's going to attract hate. We all hate that the Saudis are free to be horrible, but what is the alternative? A new Iraq?

What if you just let them be, you might say? Then you end up with 8 year long wars like Iran-Iraq. Or with genocide like in Yugoslavia in the 90s.

I think we can all agree China is a horrible dictatorship, how exactly can we stop financing it, since we rely so much on their factories?

Re: Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland

#155

Post by triceratops »

throwaway9870 wrote: post #124
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.

> The reality is that some cultures are better at it than others

That's extremely lazy reductionism. You're talking about countries of wildly different sizes (Taiwan is tiny, Japan is medium-sized, China is gargantuan), starting from wildly different levels of development (Japan was developed pre-WW2, India and China were in abject poverty), with wildly different levels of homogeneity and diversity (Japan is highly homogenous, China less so, India not at all), diplomatic alignments (Japan with the US, China with the Soviets, India in the third world), resources (Japan with zero, India with quite a fair bit), availability of capital (Japan, Taiwan and South Korea with quite a fair bit, India with very little, don't know about China), political systems (government-managed free market in Japan, autocracy transitioning to a democracy in Taiwan and S Korea, socialism in India, full communism until 1980s-1990s in China).

Re: Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland

#156

Post by jfengel »

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…

Who is going to trust Chinese companies with things like 5G infrastructure and CPS, when they're all basically an extension of the CCP when it comes to security?

They're going to try to compete on price and quality. If customers think that the Xiaomi phone is good and cheap, the governments will have a hard time banning it. Customers don't really care about turning over huge amounts of information to Tiktok as well as to Facebook. That puts the western governments in a bind, to either ban wholesale or piecemeal, and it looks bad for them either way.

That's not a guaranteed win for China. It's hard to compete on both price and quality, and they're going to have to work hard to win a reputation for the latter. It's possible: both Japan and South Korea have done it. But they did so with a friendly US, not a hostile one.

They have the advantage of an enormous internal market, but it's not a wealthy one. They're going to look to Africa, which is also not wealthy, but there is money there, with less focus on privacy and more on price. Perhaps India and Latin America as well.

Re: Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland

#157

Post by Blackstone4 »

pietrovismara wrote: post #134
Blackstone4 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way you phrase it, makes it sound like theft...surely, they have to buy the assets and that goes to the owner...the owner then can chose to re-invest locally if they choose to...the capital doesnt just disappear...

> the owner then can chose to re-invest locally if they choose to Only at the conditions imposed by the IMF. Usually that means the state has to steer away from anything that could be profitable and focus only on what is not palatable to foreign capital. It also means states can't apply import taxes, thus making their industries instantly obsolete. It's pretty much a huge transfer of wealth from inside to outside.

so are you mainly refering to state-owned assets rather than privately owned assets? State-owned companies are notorious for being badly run...no wonder they are overrun by foreign competition. Would it not be possible for a state to IPO these assets or give shares directly to the population rather than sell?

Re: Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland

#158

Post by tim333 »

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…

When I was younger tariffs were popular in developing countries but they seldom seemed to produce much prosperity - quite the contrary really.

Maybe if you apply the tariffs very intelligently but most developing countries are not blessed with great non corrupt governments.

The

>pressured into free trade agreements (for example by making aid dependent on this)

is kind of telling. A lot of the long time free trading countries like HK and Singapore don't need aid. It's often the tarrifs that make places poor enough to need that.

Re: Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland

#159

Post by starfallg »

oblio wrote: post #27
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…

> So the book argues that when developing countries are pressured into free trade agreements This should have been obvious since the Opium Wars and the Opening of Japan (see Commodore Matthew Perry). All developed countries are pro free trade for markets where they are strong and fiercely protectionist where they are not (or they consider those markets strategic priorities). I'm from Romania. Romania joined the EU in…

>I'm from Romania. Romania joined the EU in 2007, so we had to liberalize everything. It has generally been good for us (higher wages, economic growth, overall development), but I know all the German, French, Belgian supermarket chains.

That's already known factor though. The reason of the free movement of labour to make up for capital movements like these.

Re: Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland

#160

Post by zz865 »

oblio wrote: post #27
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…

> So the book argues that when developing countries are pressured into free trade agreements This should have been obvious since the Opium Wars and the Opening of Japan (see Commodore Matthew Perry). All developed countries are pro free trade for markets where they are strong and fiercely protectionist where they are not (or they consider those markets strategic priorities). I'm from Romania. Romania joined the EU in…

I'm from a country where there are several locally owned supermarkets. They're all very nice but eye wateringly expensive. I'd love if Aldi/Carrefour/Costco moved in.
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