The Ghana Tourism Authority(GTA) has launched the 2019 National Chocolate Day and National Tourism Awards.
The Ministry of Tourism in collaboration with Ghana Tourism Authority, the Ghana Cocoa Board, the Cocoa Processing Company and the Chef Association of Ghana redesigned Valentine’s Day to Chocolate Day in 2005.
This was to change the widely held perception of the celebration of the valentine’s day to the promotion and consumption of made in Ghana chocolate, with the main objective of; boosting domestic tourism and to create awareness for Ghanaians to appreciate the health benefit of chocolate.
The 2019 National Chocolate Day will be observed on February 14, 2018 under the theme; “MY CHOCOLATE EXPERIENCE” With a line up of many activities including the national tourism awards.
The Tourism Awards forms part of the efforts by the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture to recognize tourism players helping to promote Ghana as a tourism destination.
Delivering a speech on behalf of the Chief Executive of Ghana Cocoa Board ,Deputy CEO Emmanuel Opoku assured that COCOBOD will continue to promote the production local cocoa products.
“COCOBOD will continue to partner relevant stakeholders to intensify awareness creation on the health and nutritional benefits of cocoa, which is also the main ingredient of making chocolate in a bid to increase local production and consumption”.
He stated that the success the country has recorded in increasing the production of locally produced cocoa products is worth commending.
“I am happy to report that through the collaborative efforts of players in the cocoa industry in supporting COCOBOD’s cocoa consumption drive, domestic processing of cocoa has hit three hundred thousand metric tons representing 19% of national output from the previous figure of about two hundred and fifty two thousand metric tons”
“Currently, local processing of cocoa is 34% of the total volume of annual cocoa output, an indication that we are making progress”, he said.
Citinewsroom