Ghana’s Cocoa Marketing Board (COCOBOD) has successfully signed an $800 million syndicated loan with banks and anticipates drawing down the initial $600 million as early as this week, according to its deputy chief executive officer.

COCOBOD, the world’s second-largest cocoa producer, traditionally employs an annual syndicated loan to fund bean purchases from farmers.

Ray Ankrah, Deputy CEO of COCOBOD, expressed the challenges faced in finalizing the deal, stating, “I joined COCOBOD in 2018 and this is the hardest transaction we have had. It’s been signed, and we are working on the drawdown. We’re drawing down $600 million by the end of this week, and we expect to draw down the $200 million in the middle to the end of January.”

The terms of the loan, approved by Ghana’s parliament in November, remain consistent. Under the approved terms, COCOBOD will pay interest of nearly 8%, including the one-month Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR) around 5.3% and a margin of 2.65%.

Professor Agyapomaa Gyeke-Dako, an economist at the University of Ghana, noted that the loan could support the local cedi currency by cooling dollar demand spurred by slow progress in restructuring the country’s bilateral debt. Ghana and Ivory Coast are anticipating their smallest cocoa crops in years due to poor weather.

Ankrah previously told the media that COCOBOD planned to capitalize on record-high global cocoa prices by selling part of the country’s crop on the spot market.