Yemisi Izuora
The Bank of Industry (BOI) has secured a €60 million credit facility from the European Investment Bank to fund Nigeria’s cocoa and dairy value addition drive, with a focus on processing, ingredients and chocolate manufacturing.
The Managing Director/CEO of BOI, Dr. Olasupo Olusi, disclosed this on Tuesday, July 14, during the Africa Cocoa Summit convened in Abuja on July 14 by the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment with the aim of transitioning Africa from exporting raw beans to local processing and branding.
Also known as the Cocoa Value Addition Summit with the theme: ‘From Bean to Brand,’ it was attended by leaders and stakeholders from Nigeria, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, and Cameroon who signed the Abuja Declaration to establish the Cocoa Value Addition Alliance (CVAA).
According to Olusi, the €60 million forms part of the €85 million EIB–BOI facility, backed by the European Union under the Global Gateway initiative, and designed specifically to strengthen these critical sectors in Nigeria.
“This agreement reinforces the Bank of Industry’s commitment to unlocking long-term, affordable finance for priority sectors that drive inclusive growth. Approximately 70% of the €85 million financing facility will be channeled to Nigeria’s cocoa and dairy sectors, which BOI considers among the industries with the greatest potential to create jobs and retain foreign exchange earnings.”
“We are particularly focused on cocoa value chains, which provide livelihoods for thousands of Nigerians. Through this initiative, we aim to enhance productivity, value addition, and market linkages that will directly improve the incomes of farmers and processors,” he said.
The BOI MD said that the bank would prioritise lending to processors, cooperatives, and MSMEs that add value locally, rather than only to traders exporting raw beans, adding that the era of celebrating volume of raw exports must end, as Nigeria loses billions by shipping beans and importing finished chocolate. According to him, the goal is to create factories around cocoa communities so that value, jobs, and taxes remain in Nigeria.
However, Olusi noted that financing alone is not enough, and as such, BOI will complement the loans with technical assistance on compliance, climate standards, and access to the EU market. BOI, he said, will also support farmers and processors to meet the EU Deforestation Regulation and other international environmental and social standards.
Citing BOI’s track record, Olusi said the bank disbursed over ₦164 billion in 2025 to more than 3,500 agro and food-processing businesses. The support financed factories, mills, packhouses, and cold chains, and linked nearly 48,000 smallholder farmers into industrial value chains.
He said the new financing would target the entire ecosystem, from nurseries and farmer cooperatives to grinding plants, ingredient factories, packaging lines, and chocolate manufacturers.
Speaking also at the summit, President Bola Tinubu called for a decisive shift from Africa’s long-standing dependence on exporting raw cocoa beans, urging producing countries to prioritise value addition and capture a larger share of the global chocolate industry’s wealth.
The President who was represented by the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari, noted that although Africa accounts for about 70 per cent of global cocoa production, the continent retains only six cents of every dollar generated by the global chocolate industry.
He stressed that Nigeria was committed to processing more of its cocoa locally, expanding chocolate manufacturing, building indigenous brands and competing more effectively in international markets, rather than continuing to export raw cocoa beans.
According to the President, cocoa value addition remains a key component of the Renewed Hope Agenda and the country’s broader industrialisation strategy, and disclosed that investors are developing a 70,000-tonne cocoa processing facility in Shagamu, Ogun State, while Nigeria’s cocoa grinding capacity has already surpassed 120,000 tonnes annually.
Earlier, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Dr. Jumoke Oduwole, said the summit aligns with the Federal Government’s ambition of building a one-trillion-dollar economy by 2030.
She observed that despite Nigeria’s significant contribution to global cocoa production, the country continues to earn only a small fraction of the value created across the cocoa value chain.
According to Oduwole, the Federal Government is promoting greater value addition through manufacturing incentives, investment promotion and stronger collaboration among relevant institutions.
She added that the government would also deepen market access by leveraging existing trade partnerships and opportunities under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), while encouraging investors to take advantage of regional and global value chains to unlock the sector’s full economic potential.
Also speaking, the Minister of State for Industry, Senator John Owan Enoh, described the summit as another milestone in implementing Nigeria’s Industrial Policy, and announced plans for the establishment of the Cocoa Value Addition Alliance, bringing together Nigeria, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire and Cameroon, countries that collectively account for about 75 percent of global cocoa production.
According to Enoh, the alliance is designed to strengthen regional cooperation, promote local processing, and enable producing countries to capture greater value from the global cocoa market.
“We are not here to disrupt existing partnerships but to expand them,” he said.
Enoh urged African cocoa-producing nations to move beyond exporting raw beans and instead focus on developing branded cocoa products capable of competing successfully in global markets.
On his part, the Chief Executive of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), Dr. Ransford Abbey, urged African cocoa-producing countries to deepen domestic processing.
“I am here to support the effort and commit to a joint effort towards increasing value for our hardworking cocoa farmers and our respective economies,” Abbey said.
He said Africa produced about 75 per cent of the world’s cocoa but earned less than 10 per cent of the global chocolate industry’s wealth.
“This system cannot continue. We must shift the paradigm from exporting raw poverty to creating refined wealth right here on the African continent,” he said, adding that stronger regional collaboration, investment and technology transfer will help African countries capture greater value from the global cocoa economy.
The Head of Cooperation of the European Union Delegation to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Mr. Massimo De Luca, reiterated the importance of value addition in the cocoa value chain. While expressing the support of the EU, he called on governments of the various countries to ensure they play their part in ensuring that proper framework necessary for the success of the initiative was established and clarified.