about us
FICOTA is a product of the African Chamber of Trade and Commerce (ACC) headquartered in Yaoundé-Cameroon with international partners. It is a supply chain project which is very vital to guarantee sustained growth in the production and transformation of goods and services in the cotton industry.
WE ARE THE #1 PLATFORM EMPOWERING MARKETS THROUGH THE INDUSTRIAL AFRICAN COTTON SUPPLY CHAIN.
WE TRAIL, WE TRACK, WE INNOVATE.
The acronym FICOTA is defined in English as the International Forum for Transformation of African Cotton, Textiles & Accessories.
FICOTA's Definition of the Problem of the Cotton Industry
Africans have been known in the past several decades to have a rich cotton farming culture. They have been exporting huge quantities of the raw materials to feed other markets around the world.
The African cotton industry sector, however, is not professionally structured through an interactive value chain to facilitate measured growth that will lead to benchmarking activities in the cotton sector.
This affects the business potential and economic outcome that could lead to more wealth, more jobs, and improved standards of living generated from cotton products. The question then becomes: How can Africans reinvent the industrial processes to benefit from the production and transformation of the cotton plant and its byproducts in order to shift the economic paradigms?
Proposed Solution
Through the FICOTA project, the ACC envisages addressing the cotton industrial value chain in Africa to build an interactive, credible, and reliable infrastructure. It works in partnership with the International Organization of French Speaking Nations (OIF) through the Tripartite Initiative of Diversification and Densification (DEDICOT) of Cotton for added value in the production and transformation value chain. FICOTA seeks to transform cotton into textile, garments, accessories, and others products, to include products from byproducts of cotton. This project is similar to The Salon International de Cotton (SICOT) launched in 2018 in Burkina Faso during the Koudogou, an international cotton conference.
Why FICOTA?
The reawakening of Africans in the transformation of their environment has revealed a lot of consciousness. The product “cotton” and its byproducts can be a major source of employment and wealth for active youths and women, yet this opportunity has been less explored and exploited in our continent.
The purpose of this project is to apply the ACC sector oriented bottom-top inclusive private sector business model to add value at all levels through the cotton industry. FICOTA will focus on working with strategic partners to accomplish this vision. The project is brought to life every two years in December at the prime location of Kribi, which is one of Africa’s most attractive beaches and an underexploited deep seaport situated in Cameroon within the Gulf of Guinea. FICOTA prioritizes promoting unmatched investment potentials which provides the opportunity for industrial growth and market expansion for businesses and institutions with adapted ecosystems within the Gulf of Guinea.
LATEST NEWS
 |  |  |  |
|---|---|---|---|
 |  |  |  |
In February 2021, FICOTA launched the African Fashion Project (AFP) - an incubator for local talent with interest in fashion design, artisanal trades, and creative SMEs to provide machinery, resources, and knowledge of the fashion and textile industry.
​
AFP creates opportunities for participants to become vibrant African designers, brands, artisans, creative players, and business owners. AFP’s purpose is to fill the gap of resource and knowledge disparity and provide ambitious creatives with the tools they need to succeed and stimulate their communities.
OUR PARTNERS
