Phosphate exports drive Togo's trade surge as India buys more

Togo's total exports grew 23.4% year on year in the fourth quarter of 2025, with phosphate shipments from state producer Société Nouvelle des Phosphates du Togo anchoring the increase, according to trade data reported by Togo First. India captured 18.6% of Togo's total exports for the quarter, equivalent to roughly 47.2-billion CFA francs, as Indian buyers imported high-volume, bulk raw commodities — particularly phosphate rock.

Phosphate's outsized role

SNPT operates a mining site at Hahotoé and a processing facility at Kpémé with an annual capacity of 4.8-million tonnes, and phosphate has long dominated Togo's mining export revenue: the state-owned producer contributed 106.8-billion CFA francs in 2023 alone, or nearly 90% of total mining-sector revenue that year. The concentration of Togo's mining trade in a single commodity, and increasingly in a single buyer market, illustrates both the opportunity and the risk in the country's minerals strategy.

India's growing appetite

India's phosphate rock purchases reflect its large fertiliser manufacturing industry, which relies heavily on imported raw material to supply its domestic agricultural sector. Togo's position as a reliable West African supplier gives it a growing role in Indian fertiliser supply chains, alongside larger regional producers such as Morocco's OCP Group.

Why it matters for Togo

A near quarter-on-quarter jump in Indian buying provides a meaningful revenue boost for one of West Africa's smaller economies, but it also underscores Togo's reliance on a narrow set of trading partners and a single dominant export commodity. The government has said it wants to diversify mineral output — including untapped manganese, bauxite and limestone reserves — and to push more phosphate processing domestically before export, though phosphate remains, for now, the backbone of the country's mining trade.

What happens next

With Indian demand showing no sign of slowing, Togo's near-term export performance is likely to remain closely tied to how much phosphate rock India's fertiliser industry needs, leaving SNPT's production levels as one of the most consequential variables in the country's overall trade balance.

The reliance on a single overseas buyer for close to a fifth of total exports also leaves Togo's trade figures more exposed than most West African economies to any slowdown in Indian fertiliser demand.

Sources

• Togo First: Togo's Mining Output Led by Phosphates as Revenues Remain Concentrated, 10 Feb 2026

Photo: Phosphate mining operations in Togo. Александра Пугачевская (Alexandra Pugachevsky), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.