Ivorian Cocoa Exports From Abidjan Blocked by Strike

By Pauline Bax

Dec. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Cocoa exports from Ivory Coast’s main international port of Abidjan have been blocked by a strike by dock workers, a labor union said.

“The dockers are on strike because we want our salaries to be reviewed,” Jean Landry Atse, president of the National Dockers’ Association, said by phone from the city today. The dock workers are also demanding the release of 11 of their colleagues who were arrested earlier this week over a pay dispute, Atse said.

Abidjan accounts for 40 percent of cocoa shipments from Ivory Coast, while the second and smaller port of San Pedro ships about 60 percent of the crop.

Ivory Coast is the world’s biggest cocoa grower, producing 39 percent of global annual output, according to the Web site of the Food and Agricultural Organization.

To contact the reporters on this story: Pauline Bax in Abidjan via Johannesburg at abolleursa@bloomberg.net.