(Ecofin Agency) - On February 2, 2018, the Turkish textile group Ayka Textile announced the construction of an integrated cotton processing plant in Ouagadougou, Sidwaya reports.

The facility, valued at CFA220 billion, is set to be completed in the next six months. It will run with energy supplied by a coal-fired plant (35 MW), while SOFITEX will provide 20,000 tons of fiber.

The project is expected to generate, over three years, 12, 000 direct jobs and 50, 000 indirect jobs.

“We’ve already used Burkinabe cotton. It is one of the reasons why we came at the source to build this processing plant because the quality of Burkina Faso cotton is demanded by our customers in Europe and everywhere else,” explained Yusuf Aydeniz, the company’s chairman.

Despite an organized sector and the availability of raw materials, Cotton processing is still under-developed in Burkina-Faso.

According to AfDB’s estimates, the country processes less than 1% of its annual output and has only one operational industrial spinning factory converting 7,000 tons of fiber into yarn.

Espoir Olodo