How Benin is on the road to reshaping its cotton industry, with China’s help
For decades, moving Benin’s cotton harvest from the north of the country to its southern ports was a slow, difficult journey along unpaved roads. Benin is Africa’s largest cotton producer, but it lacked the infrastructure needed to connect its northern cotton-growing belt to the coast and processing
By Jevans Nyabiage
For decades, moving Benin’s cotton harvest from the north of the country to its southern ports was a slow, difficult journey along unpaved roads.
Benin is Africa’s largest cotton producer, but it lacked the infrastructure needed to connect its northern cotton-growing belt to the coast and processing plants in the Glo-Djigbé Industrial Zone (GDIZ) near Cotonou, the country’s largest city and economic capital.
The GDIZ – part of the government’s efforts to end raw cotton exports – now processes a fifth of the national cotton harvest into finished clothing for global brands such as US Polo Assn and The Children’s Place.
But the transport bottleneck is easing, thanks to a 184km (114-mile) road from Djougou in the northwest to Banikoara in the northeast – the “white gold” capital accounting for more than a third of Benin’s total cotton production.
The project – which is nearing completion – has been co-financed by the European Union and the Africa Growing Together Fund, a US$2 million facility funded by the People’s Bank of China and administered by the African Development Bank Group (AfDB).
Aristide Medenou, Benin’s new Finance Minister, said the project was a logical investment given Banikoara’s location.
“We need high-quality transport networks to move the harvested cotton down to the ports and to the southern industrial processing zones,” Medenou said.
The Cotton Road, as it is known, was built with an investment of more than €163 million (US$188 million) and cuts through the heart of Benin’s agricultural production zone in the north.
Simon Pierre Adovelande, Benin’s ambassador to China until 2025, said Cotonou had secured funding from Chinese financial institutions and selected Chinese contractors to build the infrastructure.
Sinohydro Corporation, a subsidiary of state-owned PowerChina, is the main contractor.
According to the AfDB, the project had reached 68 per cent completion by April this year and it is estimated it will cut transit times by up to 75 per cent, linking the north directly to the south.
Beijing’s agricultural involvement in Benin is also expanding through a bilateral assistance programme. Chinese agronomy experts are providing technical support to increase cotton yields and upgrade farming methods, according to Adovelande.
Ghislain Hologan, a technical adviser on international finance at the ministry, said Benin aimed to lift local processing capacity from the current 20 per cent to 50 to 60 per cent in the medium term.
“This is something that will really make a big difference,” Hologan said, noting that Benin exported to Europe and the US, with lower tariffs than those on competitors.
While the country’s commercial cotton fields are in the north of the country, training and technology transfers take place at the China-Benin Agricultural Technology Demonstration Centre in Sèmè-Kpodji, near Cotonou.
Funded and built by China, the facility serves as the main base for seed research, farmer training workshops and machinery distribution.
“We benefit from Chinese technical support. We receive expertise to improve crop yields, boost our domestic capacity and introduce new technical methods for growing cotton,” Adovelande said.
“We are also moving towards local processing of our cotton in partnership with Chinese firms.”
This infrastructure push coincides with a broader strategy to process commodities in Benin, moving away from exporting 80 per cent of the yield raw.
Although existing factories handle a portion of the harvest, a new special economic zone designed for Chinese companies is taking shape in Sèmè-Kpodji. Factories there plan to use the improved transport networks to manufacture finished textiles, automotive parts, electronics and pharmaceuticals.
Wilfried Leandre Houngbedji, deputy secretary general and spokesman for the government, said South Asian firms had a strong presence in the GDIZ, but the new hub in Sèmè-Kpodji was tailored for different investments.
“The zone in Sèmè-Kpodji will attract an increasing number of Chinese investors,” Houngbedji said in Cotonou last month.
“China is an evolving partner for Benin, particularly in partnership with the industrial sector, which remains one of the top priorities,” he added.
According to Adovelande, Beninese officials and Chinese firms agreed in 2023 to establish the industrial hub in Sèmè-Kpodji for Chinese industrial investment during a state visit to Beijing by then-president Patrice Talon.
Developed in partnership with the Chinese firm Guangdong New South Group Co – which invested an initial US$20 million – the Sèmè-Kpodji Economic Special Area will focus on processing raw cotton into finished textiles, alongside facilities for cashews, pharmaceuticals, electronics and automotive assembly.
“The initial planning is completed, and active construction is currently ongoing,” Adovelande said.