Cargill hopes by the end of June to ship cocoa that has been stuck in its warehouses during Ivory Coast's political crisis, the U.S. agribusiness company said.

"We want to empty our warehouses as soon as possible because that will allow us to fully resume our activities," Jos de Loor, managing director of cocoa and chocolate at Cargill, told Reuters.

"By the end of June it (the cocoa) should be out of the country."

Ivory Coast, the world's top cocoa producer, resumed cocoa exports earlier this month after a disputed presidential election led to an export ban, European trade sanctions, a crippled banking system and weeks of civil war.

Cargill, one of the world's top buyers of cocoa beans, announced earlier this week that it had resumed its Ivory Coast cocoa operations.

"We still encounter many small problems (exporting) but we don't encounter big problems anymore. You have some problems with documentation, in some cases you have some problems with transport... you have some minor problems with supply," de Loor said, adding the situation was improving daily.

Cargill is shipping Ivory Coast cocoa to a wide range of destinations including Europe and South America, de Loor said.

While Cargill is relieved exports have resumed, de Loor said security concerns in rural Ivory Coast were making it difficult to assess the state of the country's mid crop.

"The only thing we can say is that the weather so far has been very good and that, as a consequence of that, the mid crop should be good, however, we have not been able to travel up country and we have not been able to assess the situation locally," De Loor said.

Abundant rains fell last week in Ivory Coast's cocoa-growing regions and should enable a strong mid-crop until at least early August, regardless of months of political crisis, farmers and analysts said earlier this week.

The Ivory Coast mid crop runs from April to September and some analysts have expressed concern that the recent conflict in the country could have a negative impact on the mid-crop. (Reuters)