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| CHOCOLATE - GHANA''S NEW TARGET |
1/10/2007 |
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By Innocent Appiah
Wednesday, 10 January 2007
FEBRUARY 14, St. Valentine’s Day, celebrated worldwide as an occasion for expression of love, is to assume an added significance in Ghana as National Chocolate Day, to promote the consumption of made-in-Ghana chocolate.
The government has decided that with effect from this year, the highlight of the Valentine’s Day celebration in Ghana will be to create awareness for increased patronage of Ghana’s chocolate.
Yesterday, Tourism and Diasporan Relations Minister, Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, laun-ched the idea in Accra and said, "If countries like Japan and South Korea are encouraging the promotion and consumption of Ghanaian chocolate, why can’t we also do the same?"
He said "Cocoa is being taken as a tourism product because there are chocolate lovers all over the world and so we need to follow such people to enable us to reap the benefits of being the second leading world producers."
Chocolate lovers in Japan and South Korea for instance, he said, eat a bar of chocolate with the brand name ‘Ghana’, each day, and by that habit they promote awareness of Ghana because they know that Ghana chocolate is made from superior quality cocoa produced in Ghana.
"So these people are doing something in creating awareness of this country that we need to tap and to bring those who have been made aware of Ghana over here and see where their Ghana chocolate comes from".
He said the idea is also to increase awareness among Ghanaians on the role cocoa plays in the development of the country as the number one export commodity.
The minister noted that as a result of the high premium placed by the international community, on Ghana’s cocoa, a team of experts from Japan, and South Korea among other countries would soon be in the country to conduct a research on the cocoa Industry
The Ministry has awarded a contract for the construction of a cocoa museum at the Tetteh Quarshie Cocoa Farm at Mampong in the Eastern Region, that will explain to people where cocoa came from, how it got to Ghana and how it spread to other parts of the country.
Major Courage Quashigah (rtd), Minister for Health, said numerous studies conducted worldwide have established that appropriately processed cocoa beans contain a great variety of powerful natural antioxidants which promote nitric oxide in the body to overcome erectile dysfunction and sexual weakness.
He said cocoa also has ingredients which facilitate the treatment of many chronic diseases including diabetes, stroke, cardiac arrest, asthma and arthritis and prevent many age and lifestyle-related ailments by mopping up excess body materials that cause these ailments.
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