How China will play a major role in Benin’s economic growth as a new era is ushered in

In Cotonou, Benin’s largest city and economic capital located on the southern Atlantic coast, construction crews are busy building major projects, stretching from large-scale port upgrades to the asphalt-paving of the commercial hub’s main roads. At the Autonomous Port of Cotonou, China Harbour Engineering Company is advancing Terminal 5, a project that involves reclaiming land from the sea and building two 100,000-tonne general purpose berths. Beyond municipal upgrades, Chinese firms are building strategic corridors across the country. These include a 60km (37-mile) highway in the central region linking Savalou and Bante, built by China Road and Bridge Corporation, and a 184km “cotton road” running through the main cotton-producing belt in the far north near the Niger border. The northern corridor is constructed by Sinohydro Corporation and backed by the China-supported Africa Growing Together Fund. The works form part of a broader multibillion-dollar modernising drive that has reshaped the country’s main commercial gateways over the last decade. Following last Sunday’s swearing-in of the country’s new president, Romuald Wadagni, the former finance minister who won April’s election with over 94 per cent of the vote, Benin is banking on Chinese and other foreign investors to help fix its infrastructure gap and create value-adding industries. Wadagni is a key architect of the nation’s recent economic reforms, having served as finance chief for a decade in former president Patrice Talon’s administration. The new administration has pledged to sustain national growth by spreading development across six distinct economic territories. The newly appointed president emphasised this domestic vision during his inauguration speech in Cotonou last weekend, saying that “national growth only holds meaning when it becomes visible in the ordinary lives of the populations”. Addressing international partners, Wadagni said the country “will remain open to the world, without ever straying from itself”. Aristide Medenou, former director general for the economy at Benin’s Ministry of Economy and Finance and the country’s new finance minister, said public policy would focus heavily on these outlying areas. “Instead of directing everything centrally from Cotonou, each territory will have its own governing authority to ensure a much fairer distribution of development across the entire country,” Medenou said. Chinese President Xi Jinping congratulated Wadagni in April and expressed readiness “to continue implementing the outcomes of the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation”, the triennial gathering where China sets its multibillion-dollar funding quotas, tariff exemptions and infrastructure pledges for the next three years. With increased investment in infrastructure, Benin aims to secure its position as the main transit route to the sea for landlocked Sahelian states such as Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso. Although the three neighbours have in the recent past had military coups and cut ties with Western allies including France, Benin has steadily deepened its relationship with Beijing. Niger relies on Beninese ports to ship its oil to international markets via the newly built 1,950km cross-border pipeline, which is built and operated by China National Petroleum Corporation. Benin does not own the infrastructure or the crude, but it functions as the transit host, drawing economic benefit through port taxes and shipping tariffs at the Seme-Kpodji offshore export terminal. China is also expanding its reach in Benin through security help and a steady supply of industrial machinery. Wilfried Leandre Houngbedji, government deputy secretary general and spokesman, called the relationship with Beijing excellent, saying that “bilateral cooperation is top-tier and spans diverse fields”. Speaking in Cotonou, Houngbedji pointed to recent Chinese donations of military equipment, including drones, police cars and heavy artillery. “China supports us in security and infrastructure, among several other fields,” he said. The hardware aims to boost the Beninese Armed Forces’ operational capability as the army intensifies its campaign against the growing threat of terrorism along its northern borders, though Houngbedji stressed that these ties did not cut out Western partners. Furthermore, the shift is highly visible on Benin’s streets, which are now filling up with Chinese cars and heavy machinery. “While this was not the case 18 months ago, there is now an increasing number of Chinese vehicles on the roads, alongside various other machinery,” Houngbedji said. China truly has an impact on everything; there is virtually no sector where China is not active Wilfried Leandre Houngbedji, deputy secretary general On infrastructural sites, such as the urban road-paving works in Cotonou, Chinese contractors were working directly on the ground alongside Beninese workers, Houngbedji added. He said this set-up was common across Africa and held true for Benin, where major projects relied on a mix of grants and credit lines set up with the Export-Import Bank of China. Medenou agreed that Benin had “a very good relationship with China”, noting that soybeans dominated the trade relationship, representing the vast majority of the country’s total exports to China. He told the South China Morning Post that this partnership was equally visible across the domestic construction sector, pointing to the widespread physical transformation on the ground. “Benin has undergone numerous major development projects and China is actively involved in supporting us in this area, including building roads and various types of infrastructure,” Medenou said. In 2024, China imported US$141.48 million worth of Beninese goods, heavily dominated by soybeans and oil seeds, while exporting US$965.77 million worth of products to the West African nation – including telephones, motorcycles and iron structures, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity. Simon Pierre Adovelande, Benin’s ambassador to China for eight years until 2025, said that when Talon visited China in 2023, the country secured 13 major deals designed to span seven years, covering sectors from agriculture and infrastructure to energy and education. “Beyond infrastructure and roads, we have also opened up the Chinese market to Beninese agricultural products, particularly soybeans and pineapples,” Adovelande said in Cotonou. “We are seeing our agricultural sector expand rapidly because farmers are increasing their cultivated surface areas now that a guaranteed market exists,” Adovelande said, adding that the trade benefited directly from China’s zero-tariff programme.

How China will play a major role in Benin’s economic growth as a new era is ushered in

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}African nation’s new president is banking on Chinese investment to help fix its infrastructure gap with large-scale construction projects

African nation’s new president is banking on Chinese investment to help fix its infrastructure gap with large-scale construction projects