One year after the decree establishing zoning in the cotton sector (Decree No. 2016-1153 of 28 December 2016), the Council of Cotton and Cashew (the regulator of 2 speculations) signed the agreement with the companies to which exclusive zones have been allocated.
The document signing ceremony took place on Friday 22 December 2017. It marks the application of the new provision in the field.
With the signing of this agreement, each of the 6 companies that share the 14 cotton ginning units accepts the area of intervention assigned to it. On the allocated space, the company has the exclusive purchase of seed cotton, development, and supervision of producers.
The authorities are expecting a lot of zoning to revive the white gold culture whose number of producers has dropped by 15% since 2014. “This structural change requires, for the space reserved for an operator, to be part of a process of optimizing costs and improving productivity, which are the first indicators of its activity. It is on this condition that the cotton business will be profitable for both the producers and the partner cotton company, “said the Director General of the Cotton and Cashew Council, Adama Coulibaly.
Optimism shared by the PCA of the regulatory body. “Zoning is the only way to make our industry competitive,” said Bamba Mamadou. Adding that “the implementation of zoning is a process that will be perfected as the next campaigns”.
It remains for each party to respect the clauses of the agreement. This is the wish expressed by Jean-François Touré and Silué Kassoum. Respectively President of the Professional Association of Cotton Companies of Côte d’Ivoire (APROCOT-CI) and President of the Federation of Cotton Producers (FPC-CI).
Cotton is the 4ème speculation product of Côte d’Ivoire, after cocoa, rubber and cashew. The country ranks 4th largest producer in Africa. The industrial fabric of the Ivorian cotton sector is composed of 14 ginning units. They belong to 6 companies: CIDT, Ivory Cotton, COIC, SECO, SICOSA.2.0 and Global Cotton. Their total ginning capacity is 625.000 tons per year.
With businessincameroun
