Delegates at a meeting of the Executive Committee of the International Cocoa Organisation (ICCO) in London said the ICCO had worked successfully under the 1993 agreement as a forum for cocoa producers and consumers to discuss and find solutions to the problems of the industry.

In general we're happy that the agreement has provided a discussion forum that has brought out the problems and found ways to resolve them," the leader of a producing country delegation said. "I personally want to go for a two-year extension of the agreement." The current agreement is the fifth since 1972 drawn up by the 38-country ICCO to facilitate the world cocoa trade.

It can be extended for two years from September. But producer and consumer representatives indicated that a battle may be brewing over Article 29 which provides fora plan to manage production in order to achieve a balanced market. "We feel there are reasons for adjustments to the agreement. We are not too satisfied with it, although the ICCO itself has worked well," a producer delegate said. "We'd like to work at Article 29 and see how that can be improved." A consumer delegate criticised an ICCO report on the operation of the 1993 agreement as too positive.

Consumer countries would ask for another report on the functioning of the production management plan and proposals to improve it, he said. This would be presented to a 25th anniversary session of the ICCO council in London in September which will consider the fate of the International Cocoa Agreement, the delegate said. "My delegation will insist that it will only agree to extend the agreement if the producer countries agree to a radical change in the production management plan," he said. "We want a fundamental change in the implementation of the production management plan to make it a realistic programme whichcan really be implemented." The plan currently indicated to producers how much cocoa to produce annually to achieve a balanced market and they were ignoring it, he said.

The ICCO should drop production quotas and concentrate on keeping producers well informed on how the world market was developing, indicating to them when gradually to increase or decrease production over periods of up to five years.

"The present system makes the whole agreement appear ridiculous. Why not be a bit more modest and do something less which has a chance of achieving something?" the delegate said. The ICCO report also suggests dropping national production quotas or "indicative tonnages" and suggesting only global production targets.

The consumer delegate also criticised Articles 30-32 of the 1993 agreement on consumption issues, saying consumer countries had warned producers not to include them in 1993. "The trouble is that the producers still dream that governments can do something about consumption....They should recognisethe reality of the market," he said.