Côte d’Ivoire Seeks Chinese Capital to Drive Local Cotton Processing

Côte d’Ivoire ranks among West Africa’s top cotton producers alongside Benin, Mali, and Burkina Faso. However, downstream processing within the value chain remains limited. To shift this dynamic, Abidjan is actively pursuing the expansion of its domestic textile industry.

Côte d’Ivoire is actively seeking Chinese investments in the textile and apparel sectors to accelerate the local processing of its raw cotton. In pursuit of this strategy, the Cotton, Cashew, and Shea Council (CCA-K) signed a partnership agreement on Tuesday, August 25, with the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade - Textile Industry (CCPIT-TEX) on the sidelines of the InterTextile Shanghai 2026 expo.

According to a press release from CCA-K, this initiative aims to foster direct partnerships between commercial operators and investors from both nations.

“This agreement paves the way for increased commercial and technological exchanges, the mobilization of structural investments, and capacity-building programs in textiles and apparel between both countries,” the sector regulator highlighted.

China represents a strategic industrial partner for Abidjan. As the world’s leading exporter of textiles and clothing, the country possesses a fully integrated value chain encompassing spinning, weaving, garment manufacturing, and industrial equipment production.

Data from the World Trade Organization (WTO) underscores China's structural dominance: in 2022, Chinese textile and apparel exports maintained an estimated domestic content ratio of 89.1%. Furthermore, the country accounted for over 40% of the total value-added in global textile exports, illustrating the massive footprint of its companies across the entire global supply chain.

For Côte d’Ivoire, which has been seeking to increase domestic cotton processing for several years, the goal goes beyond securing financial capital from Chinese actors. The objective is also to acquire technology transfer and technical expertise capable of strengthening the underdeveloped segments of its domestic textile ecosystem, aligned with regional initiatives supported by the African Development Bank (AfDB).

Ambitious Goals Await Concrete Progress in Processing

While the Ivorian government previously set a target to raise the local processing rate of cotton fiber to 40% by 2025—up from 11.49% in 2020—no recent official report has been released to evaluate the exact progress achieved past that milestone. However, sector data cited by the Investment Promotion Center in Côte d’Ivoire (CEPICI) in 2026 reveals that more than 90% of Ivorian cotton is still exported in its raw state, primarily to Asian markets.

Given these circumstances, attracting new foreign direct investment is seen as a critical lever to expand domestic processing capacity and build out the national industrial fabric.

According to the Ivorian Economic Information and Promotion Portal, the installed capacity of spinning and weaving units in the country stands at 26,000 metric tons per year. Additionally, two specialized fabric finishing companies hold a combined annual processing capacity of 35 million meters of fabric.

The ultimate challenge for Abidjan will now be translating these diplomatic and commercial agreements into concrete industrial facilities—projects capable of significantly increasing the proportion of locally processed cotton and retaining greater value added within the national economy.