A delegation of Togolese business representatives arrived in China’s Hebei province on Monday for a trade mission organized by the Hebei Business Culture Association. The visit marks the association’s second mission of its kind.

Led by the Togo Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI-Togo), the roughly 40-member delegation spans multiple sectors. Participants aim to strengthen economic ties between Togo and China by exploring industries including automotive, electronics, energy, textiles, agribusiness, agricultural machinery, the digital economy and artificial intelligence.

The mission focuses on building partnerships and includes business-to-business meetings, negotiation sessions and trade exchanges. Its stated goal is to promote Togolese exports and encourage cross-investment between the two countries.

The initiative is part of a cooperation agreement signed between CCI-Togo and the Hebei Business Culture Association. The accord covers the development of economic relations, trade facilitation, organizing forums and trade fairs, and supporting companies seeking to establish operations in either country.

Several Chinese companies have already conducted exploratory visits to Togo under the agreement, and some have begun setting up operations there.

Esaïe Edoh

Togolese health authorities have been preparing since March for a nationwide distribution campaign of insecticide-treated mosquito nets (ITNs), a government document shows.

The government plans to allocate 1.3 billion CFA francs in 2026 to procure 742,902 nets, according to the “Budget du citoyen” published by the Ministry of Finance and Budget.

No official launch date has been announced, but the document outlines the planned distribution across regions.

The Plateaux region is expected to receive the largest share, with 211,481 nets, followed by the Savanes region with 146,539.

Kara and Maritime will receive 125,370 and 121,967 nets respectively, while the Central region is allocated 98,526. Greater Lomé is set to receive 39,018.

In 2025, authorities distributed 570,827 nets, exceeding an initial target of 530,742.

The campaign is part of efforts to combat malaria and follows the introduction in September 2025 of the R21/Matrix-M vaccine for children under five.

Esaïe Edoh

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), in partnership with Togo's Ministry of Agriculture, is working to build the capacity of agricultural stakeholders to improve access to financing.

Training sessions were held in Lomé last week, focused on a tool called RuralInvest.

The tool combines software and technical support, enabling entrepreneurs to produce business plans that meet lenders’ requirements. “RuralInvest is primarily designed to produce bankable business plans,” said trainer Oscar Ogoutolou.

The system relies on field data collection to base projects on real conditions. Users can adjust parameters to reflect their specific constraints.

“All the sections [...] can be adapted as needed,” Ogoutolou said, highlighting the tool’s flexibility. RuralInvest also supports remote collaboration, facilitating exchanges between developers and partners, including across borders.

The tool is already in use in several West African countries, including Benin, Burkina Faso and Senegal. In Togo, its rollout is expected to improve the quality of applications submitted to lenders, while strengthening the ability of technicians and financial institutions to evaluate projects.

Togo has launched a new science and engineering education project at the University of Lomé to train more than 2,000 engineers between 2026 and 2030.

The initiative, called Science, Technology and Education for Leadership from Lomé for Africa (STELLA), has a budget of 13 billion CFA francs and was unveiled last week.

Led by the University of Lomé and implemented by its École Polytechnique de Lomé (EPL), the project is backed by Luxembourg through its development agency, LuxDev. It aims to establish the EPL as a center of excellence by strengthening professional training in engineering disciplines.

STELLA will create strategic academic tracks, develop transferable skills and introduce measures to improve graduates’ employment prospects. The project also addresses structural weaknesses at the institution, including inadequate infrastructure, limited industry-oriented training and low female participation in scientific programs.

Training programs will be modernized in line with high-growth sectors such as energy, construction, information and communications technology, and agro-industry. The project will also introduce a more autonomous governance model with greater private-sector involvement.

STELLA will include a modern learning environment equipped with state-of-the-art facilities, to be built on a five-hectare site within the University of Lomé.

University President Professor Kossivi Hounaké said the project is a key driver in positioning the institution as a leading center for training, innovation and applied research, while improving youth employability and supporting entrepreneurship.

STELLA is expected to contribute to the country’s broader economic and social transformation by producing qualified engineers, fostering innovation and strengthening institutional governance. It aims to establish the University of Lomé as a key player in training future leaders.

Esaïe Edoh

Consumer price inflation in Togo remained low, rising 1.6% year-on-year in March 2026, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics and Economic and Demographic Studies (INSEED).

The increase was mainly driven by higher costs for housing, water, electricity and fuels, which rose 8.0% on an annual basis. Restaurants and hotels followed with a 4.0% gain, while healthcare prices rose 1.7% and food prices edged up 0.6%.

Partly offsetting this, prices in the information and communication sector fell 1.3% over the period, while education prices declined 0.8%.

By origin, the overall increase was driven by locally produced goods, which rose 2.2% year-on-year. Energy prices increased more sharply, up 7.9%, reflecting their share in household spending.

On a quarterly basis, prices rose 2.2%, driven by food products, up 6.8%, and fresh produce, up 7.3%, pointing to strains in agricultural markets.

Despite these pressures, 12-month average inflation remained at 0.1%, unchanged from the previous month, keeping Togo within WAEMU convergence criteria.

Across the region, Togo's price performance was broadly in line with its peers, against a backdrop of food and energy price fluctuations.

Ayi Renaud Dossavi

No business leader agreed to appear on the panel. The organizer flagged that fact himself at the opening. It said much about the state of relations between Togo's private sector and its tax administration.

That unease was precisely what the ninth edition of Edem Adékunlé d'Almeida's Afterwork sought to address on April 2 in Lomé, drawing dozens of business leaders to the Onomo Hotel despite a rainy evening.

Yawa Djigbodi Tsègan, the new commissioner-general of the Office togolais des recettes (OTR), was represented by the institution's director of communications and user services, Konlani Kampatibe, a legal and tax specialist with 15 years of experience at the OTR and a participant in several of Togo's fiscal reforms. His presence alone sent a signal. This kind of dialogue between the tax administration and the private sector, outside formal audit settings, remains rare.

"How Do You Want Us to Be Perceived?"

When the room opened the evening by associating the words "vulture," "leopard" and "snake" with tax inspectors in a word-association exercise, the OTR representative did not sidestep the moment. "How do you want us to be perceived, when we send a representative to intercept you and take a share of what you’ve earned through your sweat?" he said, acknowledging that entrepreneurs' frustrations were legitimate.

He offered a structural explanation for the sense of tax pressure. A large portion of potential taxpayers escape taxation through the informal sector, concentrating the burden on formalized businesses. "When we have more taxpayers, you will feel that taxation weighs less on your shoulders," he said, calling for a more human approach between the institution and the private sector.

He also provided context on the OTR itself. Created in 2012 through the merger of the directorates-general of taxes and customs, and made operational in 2014, the institution is in a new phase under a commissioner-general who took office in October 2025 and has recently been joined by two new technical commissioners drawn from within the organization. Since its creation, revenues collected by the OTR have risen from 458.2 billion CFA francs in 2014 to 990.1 billion in 2023, an increase of more than 116% in under a decade. In 2024, the institution crossed the symbolic threshold of 1,000 billion for the first time, collecting 1,098.1 billion CFA francs, up 10.7% year on year. In the first nine months of 2025 alone, revenues reached 830.5 billion CFA francs, representing nearly 69% of the annual target of 1,208.4 billion and a year-on-year increase of 5.6%. Despite that progress, the tax-to-GDP ratio remains below the regional norm of 20%, with a taxpayer base that is still narrow.

An Asymmetry That Frustrates

The discussion featured two experts with unusual professional backgrounds. Sandra Akakpo Mondja, a chartered accountant and former public finance inspector trained at the OTR's tax and customs training institute, pointed to the absence of progressivity in corporate income tax, which is applied at the same rate to small and large companies alike. She also criticized a persistent asymmetry in tax audits. "You never see an audit end with the administration telling the taxpayer they overpaid and are due a refund. That kind of transparency needs to exist in that direction too," she said. She further raised the problem of delays in processing contested cases. Under Togolese tax law, a failure by the administration to respond is treated as a rejection rather than approval, which effectively pushes many taxpayers toward the courts and further complicates their situations.

Bakafitine Banque, a legal and tax specialist and former OTR administrator who now advises taxpayers, urged the room to separate two debates it tended to conflate. These are the duty to pay taxes, on one hand, and how the state uses that revenue, on the other. He questioned the absence of any genuine public debate on finance laws in Togo. "The administration does hold consultations, of course, to discuss the finance law. But the proposals you make are rarely accepted," he said.

Concrete Grievances

Several participants illustrated their frustrations with specific cases. One entrepreneur recounted how the OTR had disallowed legitimate business expenses, including airline tickets and hotel costs incurred in carrying out a contract, on the grounds that they had been incorrectly categorized in the accounts. "It hurt me deeply," he said, before announcing his intention to raise the issue with employers' organizations so that Togo's tax system better distinguishes operating expenses from representation costs. A woman entrepreneur who runs a business centered on Labor Day events raised the case of short-lived companies whose founders later return to find accumulated tax debts despite no real business activity. "Could we not have a framework for consultation between the OTR and smaller companies, to reflect their reality?" she asked.

"I Regretted It"

A pre-event survey of the Afterwork community had already sketched the broader picture. The relationship between businesses and the tax administration was described as a "strained relationship" by a majority of respondents.

The Afterwork organized by Edem Adékunlé d'Almeida is held regularly in Lomé and brings together professionals around topics related to the private sector's economic environment. A Franco-Togolese entrepreneur who heads Africa Global Recycling and has been based in Togo for 13 years, Adékunlé d'Almeida said he had wanted, when starting out, "to do everything by the book." "I regretted it," he said simply, to applause from the room. The remark condensed what many had not dared to say aloud. In Togo's current fiscal environment, full compliance can put businesses at a disadvantage. One other participant offered a counterpoint. "I was in a dispute with a tax inspector. I won, because I was within my rights," he said, noting that avenues for recourse do exist. A second edition devoted to taxation is being considered for the coming months.

Fiacre E. Kakpo

Togo will raise funds on April 17 through a multi-tranche Treasury bond issuance, targeting 30 billion CFA francs on the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) public securities market.

According to a tender notice seen by Togo First, the Treasury plans to issue bonds (OATs) with maturities of three, five and seven years. The bonds have a face value of 10,000 CFA francs and offer interest rates of 6.15%, 6.35% and 6.50%, respectively.

The proceeds will be used to finance the 2026 state budget, set at 2.751 trillion CFA francs.

This is Togo’s second issuance on the regional market in the second quarter of 2026, during which the country plans to raise 185 billion CFA francs. So far, 33 billion CFA francs has been raised.

Since the start of the year, Togo has raised a total of 82.5 billion CFA francs on the regional market, representing just over 18% of its annual target of 463 billion CFA francs.

Esaïe Edoh

Togo and Benin are working to improve cross-border trade in horticultural produce. Stakeholders met Wednesday in Lomé to discuss ways to ease the movement of goods between the two countries.

The meeting brought together the chambers of commerce of Togo and Benin, the West African Association for Cross-Border Trade in Food, Agro-Sylvo-Pastoral and Fishery Products (AOCTAH), and the coordination unit of the Regional Agricultural Market Integration Program (PRIMA). Discussions focused on import and export conditions, aiming to remove barriers that continue to hinder trade.

Participants also connected Togolese and Beninese economic operators and explored partnerships in the production and processing of crops such as onions, tomatoes, peppers, cabbage, carrots, cucumbers and lettuce. The initiative is part of the Market Gardening Development Support Project (PADMAR).

Trade in horticultural produce between the two countries is already well established. Between Lomé, Aného, Grand-Popo and Cotonou, perishable goods move daily, largely through informal cross-border trade driven by women traders, locally known as “revendeuses”, who supply urban markets.

The initiative launched in Lomé aims to formalize these flows. It is expected to improve infrastructure, including rural roads and farm tracks, harmonize standards and price information, and ease the movement of perishable goods between the two countries.

Esaïe Edoh