Togo is a West African country. Ghana is on the west, Benin is on the east, and Burkina Faso is on the north.
On April 27, 1960, it declared independence from France.
Lome, the country's constitutional capital, is divided into five administrative divisions.
The President serves as Head of State and the Prime Minister as Head of Government in this multiparty Presidential Republic.
It has a unicameral national assembly that serves as the government's legislative branch.
The official language is French, but Ewe, Mina, Kabye, and Dagomba are also widely spoken.
The prominent religions are Christianity, Folk, and Islam, as well as other traditional religions.
The legal system is based on French civil law, with some customary law thrown in for good measure. It covers 56,785 square kilometers.
Togo has protected territorial waters and is one of West Africa's few natural deep-water ports.
Its harbor, which has the potential to become a regional hub, provides a relatively safe zone for foreign shippers.
Togo's population is expected to be 8.28 million people, with the younger population accounting for 58.8 percent of the population, those aged 25 to 64 accounting for 37.7 percent, and those aged 65 and up accounting for 3.5 percent of the population.
The average population density is estimated to be 152 people per square kilometer.
It has a life expectancy of 73.7 years for women and 68.4 years for men in terms of human development indicators.
With a primary enrollment rate of 124.32 percent in 2019 and an overall literacy rate of 63.7 percent in 2015, it attained universal primary education.
Togo's Economic Overview: Togo is a stable democracy with 20 years of political stability, and its economy is mainly reliant on agriculture, which employs 60 percent of the country's workforce.
About 20 percent of export revenues come from cocoa, coffee, cotton, and other agricultural products, with cotton being the most important cash crop.
The economy is undiversified, and the industrial structure is limited.
Togo is one of the world's major phosphate producers, and it is working to expand its carbonate phosphate deposits, which account for more than 20 percent of the country's export revenues.
Limestone, iron, manganese, marble, platinum, bauxite, and clay converted into clinker are among the country's other mineral resources, which have fueled a thriving cement industry.
The country's port Lome Port is a major asset and one of the region's largest ports, and the transportation of commodities to neighboring countries has resulted in the development of a services industry.
Togo is affected by external factors such as the impact of Nigeria's economic slump and decreasing commodity prices.
It has maintained a strong GDP growth rate over the last five years, increasing by 5.3 percent at a 5-year compound growth.
Its currency is the CFA franc, which is tied to the euro and has had a relatively low rate of inflation in recent years.
Cotton, phosphate, coffee, cocoa, and other agricultural products are among the main exports.
Petroleum products, foodstuffs, and machinery and equipment are all major imports.
Investment Opportunities: Togo's government has devised a bold development strategy aimed at attracting private investment and establishing Togo as a financial, tourism, and logistics hub, as well as modernizing the agricultural, extractive, and manufacturing sectors.
To do this, the government has begun privatizing vital economic sectors such as telecommunications and finance.
In order to increase the efficiency of government spending, the government plans to implement program-based budgeting beginning in 2021.
Efforts to restructure the government and make it more business-friendly have resulted in an improvement in the country's rating in the Doing Business report.
According to this ranking, Togo is presently among the top reformers in the world.
Infrastructure such as ports, airports, roads, railroads, mining, energy, tourism, agriculture, and ICT sectors all offer investment potential.
Togo's Major Trading Partners
According to the most recent available country-specific data from 2019, importers in Benin account for 21.3 percent of the global total, Burkina Faso with 12.9 percent, India with 10.4 percent, Niger with 8 percent, Ghana with 7.8 percent, Mali with 7.3 percent, Ivory Coast with 7.2 percent, France with 5.3 percent, Nigeria with 3.4 percent, Malaysia with 2.6 percent, Senegal with 1.3 percent, and Australia purchased 88.7 percent of Togo's exports.
In terms of value, 72.2 percent of Togo's exports were supplied to fellow African countries, while 17.8 percent were sold to Asian buyers. Togo sold another 7.9 percent of its exports to Europe.
Oceania had 1.2 percent led by Australia, North America got 1 percent, and Latin America with 0.01 percent, excluding Mexico but including the Caribbean, received smaller percentages.
Given Togo's population of 8.2 million people, the country's total 1.37 billion dollars in 2021 exports equates to nearly 170 dollars for per citizen.
Togo's Top Exports
The West African country located on Africa's mid-western coast between Ghana and Benin, transported an estimated 1.37 billion dollars worth of commodities around the world in 2021.
This figure represents a 61.8 percent growth from 2016 and a 34.1 percent increase from 2019 to 2021.
Processed petroleum oils, oil seeds, hydraulic cements, soya beans, and natural calcium or aluminum calcium phosphates are Togo's top five exports.
That quintet of top Togolese exports accounts for more than half which is 56.6 percent of Togo's worldwide shipments by value at the 2-digit Harmonized Tariff System (HTS) code level, the following export product groups constitute the largest dollar value in Togolese global shipments in 2021.
The percentage proportion of each export category in terms of total Togo exports is also indicated. 2020.
424.4 million dollars in mineral fuels, including oil and 30.9 percent of total exports
287.5 million dollars in oil seeds account for 20.9 percent
221.3 million dollars in salt, sulphur, stone, and cement accounts for 16.1 percent
77.9 million dollars for animal/vegetable fats, oils, and waxes accounts for 5.7 percent
63 million dollars in fruits and nuts account for 4.6 percent
42.6 million dollars in cotton accounts for 3.1 percent
29.3 million dollars in electrical machinery and equipment accounts for 2.1 percent
26.6 million dollars in copper accounts for 1.9 percent
23.6 million dollars in cocoa accounts for 1.7 percent
13.8 million dollars in beverages, spirits, and vinegar account for 1 percent
Togo's top ten exports accounted for 88 percent of the country's total shipments.
Copper was the fastest-growing export category among the top ten, increasing by 20,841 percent from 2019 to 2021.
Electrical machinery and equipment came in second with a 1,367 percent increase in export sales.
Togo's oil seed shipments grew at the third-fastest rate, increasing by 1,237 percent.
Cotton, with a minus 65.9 percent year-on-year reduction, was the largest decliner among Togo's top 10 export categories.
Togo's total exported goods account for 7.5 percent of the country's overall Gross Domestic Product valued at 18.2 billion dollars in Purchasing Power Parity US dollars in 2020.
In PPP terms, exports will account for 7.5 percent of overall GDP in 2021, compared to 11.1 percent in 2020.
Those percentages imply that Togo's entire economic performance is becoming increasingly reliant on products sold on international markets, albeit over a short period of time.
The unemployment rate is another important measure of a country's economic performance.
According to Trading Economics, Togo's average unemployment rate in 2020 was 4.1 percent, up from 3.6 percent in 2019.