Warehouse deliveries of cocoa from Brazil's main growing regions and from imports were up 28 percent from May 1 to December 23 compared with the same period last year, Bahia Commercial Association data showed. Bahia-based cocoa analyst Thomas Hartmann said in a weekly cocoa bulletin that total arrivals from all cocoa-growing states outside main cocoa hub Bahia were now higher than for all last season. The current May-April season still has four months to go.

Brazil is the world's sixth-largest cocoa producer. It ranked No 2 until early in the 1990s before its plantations were devastated by Witch's Broom fungus. Brazil is now harvesting its 2012/13 main crop.

Copyright Reuters, 2012