Burkina Faso welcomes the first International exhibition of Cotton

The first edition of the Salon International Cotton and Textile will be held from 27 to 29 September 2018 in Koudougou, in the province of the midwest, it was learned Monday together of the organizers of the event.

According to the Agency of Promotion of Investments in Burkina Faso (API-BF), the author of this project, more than a thousand professional visitors from 20 countries of Africa and the rest of the world are awaited in this forum.

According to the API-BF, this salon which will take place under the motto “The Transformation of Integrated Cotton, a Factor of Job Creation and Wealth,” aims to create in Africa and particularly in Burkina Faso, a permanent framework of discussions of the world’s leading experts on the transformation of the cotton.

According to official data, cotton is the second export product after gold and contributes four percent to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Burkina Faso, which lost its leading position in cotton production, in favour of Mali.

Currently, the country is able to transform just two percent of its production.

For the agricultural season 2017-2018, Burkina Faso recorded a global production of 553 thousand tons of cotton a forecast of 650 thousand tons, or a deficit of 13 percent in relation to the forecasts, said in December last to the PANA the Company Burkinabe Fibres Textiles (SOFITEX).

Several cotton producers of Burkina Faso denounce the poor quality of the fertilizers provided to the farmers, as the cause of the decrease in revenue, while the SOFITEX points to poor rainfall.