West African country Benin is developing its textile sector. Benin has in the last few years become Africa’s leading cotton producer. It exports almost all of that raw, with the majority going to Bangladesh.

Now an initiative is under way to create jobs and revenue by processing the cotton locally with the goal of exporting apparel to consumer markets in Europe, Asia, Africa and the United States. So Benin has decided to no longer sell cotton raw but to transform this cotton, in particular by installing integrated textile factories.

The plan includes textile factories as well as cashew processing units, pharmaceutical processing units, and more. Although the systems are not yet in place to get cotton from field to factory, about 1,000 garment workers are being trained in the use of imported materials for now.In about a year the industrial zone in the southwest of the country aims at employing 15,000 people in three textile factories that will have a processing capacity of about 40,000 tonnes of cotton fiber. Eventually, a multi-billion dollar industry is envisaged that can process the majority of Benin’s cotton.

Cotton is grown in several West African countries including Mali, Togo, Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast, but most is exported raw with little industrial processing across the region.