A 184km road project will make transport easier while Chinese experts and firms are assisting with technical support and local processing
3-MIN READ3-MINJevans NyabiagePublished: 2:00pm, 21 Jun 2026For 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.
Aristide Medenou, Benin’s new Finance Minister, said the project was a logical investment given Banikoara’s location.
