ABIDJAN, May 6 (Reuters) - Ivory Coast cocoa exporters have asked to meet with the West African nation's regulator to discuss financial support to cushion current market turmoil, a letter from the association representing 16 exporters showed on Monday.
Due to bean shortages, some contracts between GEPEX - which represents multinational exporters including Barry Callebaut , Olam and Cargill Inc - and the Coffee and Cocoa Council (CCC) have been postponed.
The regulator promised to help exporters who have to buy beans at higher prices after the government raised farmgate prices by 50% to 1,500 CFA francs per kg.
The decision left exporters exposed after they bought contracts at the previous price but are now struggling to source beans even at the higher price.
GEPEX said in the letter dated April 17 that the CCC should reimburse the farmgate price increase to all exporters affected by the postponement of contracts. It also asked for a meeting with the CCC.
"According to our various estimates, corroborated by several sources close to the market, the impact of this increase would be around 75 billion CFA francs ($123.41 million)," the exporters association said in the letter, adding that the volume of postponed contracts was 150,000 metric tons.
In a follow-up letter on May 3, seen by Reuters, the exporters said they had not received a response and repeated their request for a meeting.
Two sources at the CCC said exporters' figures were questionable but they did not provide their own estimates.
"We took stock at the end of the main crop...and our figures are very different from those of GEPEX," a CCC official said on condition of anonymity, adding that their estimates were lower.
While GEPEX is also calling for systematic payments to be made to affected exporters, the CCC is planning to make payments on a case-by-case basis to avoid any confusion or fraud, according to the CCC sources.
In response, the association said the CCC was failing to honour its contractual commitments.
According to the same sources within the CCC, the regulator does not want to give in to the threats from the multinational cocoa exporters.
($1 = 607.7500 CFA francs) (Reporting by Ange Aboa; Writing by Anait Miridzhanian; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)
