At a meeting between state officials and company management, the West African Cotton Company announced it is planning to invest 5 billion naira (US$25 million) in multiple value added chains in the agriculture sector in Nigeria’s Ogun state.
The governor of the state, Ibikunle Amosun, assured West African Cotton management and prospective agricultural investors of the existence of a conducive business environment and political will for the realization of returns on investment.
In an attempt to diversify the country’s economy away from its enormous reliance on crude oil, Nigeria’s government has created a plan to revisit the potential in the country’s vast agricultural sector, which was once the driver of the economy prior to the discovery of crude oil. It is this push for diversification that the West African Cotton Company is planning to capitalize upon.
The company is active in cotton ginning, marketing cotton lint to mills, and exporting cotton lint as well as gin motes and textile mill wastes. The company also import cotton from neighboring countries to sell to domestic textile mills.