The Bank of Industry (BOI) has secured 60 million euros credit facility from the European Investment Bank to fund Nigeria’s cocoa value addition drive, with a focus on processing, ingredients and chocolate manufacturing.

The Managing Director of BOI, Dr Olasupo Olusi, disclosed this on Tuesday at the Cocoa Value Addition Summit in Abuja, themed “From Bean to Brand”.

He said that the facility was to support the cocoa sector and would establish dedicated financing windows for cocoa processing, ingredient manufacturing, packaging and chocolate production.

“An example of this is the 60 million euros credit facility we received from the European Investment Bank to develop the cocoa sector.

“This will help Nigerian processors compete more fairly with multinationals that have access to cheaper finance,” he said.

Olusi said the facility was part of BOI’s broader strategy to mobilize blended, concessional and patient capital from development partners to support the cocoa sector.

He explained that beyond the EIB facility, BOI would also explore financing shared physical and digital platforms such as a Cocoa Value Addition Park in the cocoa belt.

The park, he said, would have shared processing lines, quality laboratories, reliable power, effluent treatment and digital traceability to serve processors of all sizes.

He said, “We are not approaching cocoa as a lending programme; we are building an industrial ecosystem.

“Our goal is to finance everything from nurseries and cooperatives to grinding plants, ingredient factories, packaging lines and chocolate manufacturers.”

According to Olusi, cocoa financing cannot be generic. It must be structured around the biology of the tree, the rhythm of the harvest, and the economics of the factory.

He noted that replanting finance must carry grace periods of three to five years, while grinding plants need hundreds of millions of dollars in seasonal finance to buy a year’s beans within a four-month window.

He said processing plants and ingredient lines required patient, seven to 10 years term capital that commercial banks rarely offer.

Citing BOI’s track record, Olusi said the bank disbursed over N164 billion in 2025 to more than 3,500 agro and food-processing businesses.

He said 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.

Olusi stressed that Nigeria produced over 300,000 tonnes of cocoa annually but had effective grinding capacity of only about 50,000 tonnes. He said that closing that gap could multiply export value two to four times.

The BOI boss added that capital would be paired with business development support, technical advisory and enterprise training to strengthen costing, quality, standards and export documentation.

“We are not approaching cocoa as a lending programme; we approach it as an ecosystem.

“Our role is not only provider of capital, but builder of markets, convener of partners, and catalyst for private investment many times the size of our own,” he said.

He said that the goal was industrialisation, import substitution through local cocoa powder production and export promotion of butter and liquor to ECOWAS and the Gulf as awell as job creation for young Nigerians.

“For at the Bank of Industry, we hold to a simple conviction, we are not in the business of financing commodities. We are in the business of financing value creation,” Olusi said.

Dr Chris Isokpunwu, the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, said cocoa remained strategic to Nigeria’s industrialisation agenda.

Isokpunwu was represented by the Director of Industrial Development at the ministry, Mr Mohammed Bala.

He said more than 80 per cent of Nigeria’s cocoa was exported as raw beans despite the industry’s enormous processing potential.

Isokpunwu said local processing would generate higher export earnings, create jobs and stimulate downstream industries, including confectionery, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals.

Also speaking, 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.

Abbey said stronger regional collaboration, investment and technology transfer would help African countries capture greater value from the global cocoa economy

The representative of the European Union, Mr Massino Deluko, in his remarks 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 the proper framework neccessary for the success of the initiative was established and clarified.