Written by Tiemoko Diallo
BAMAKO, Dec 2 (Reuters) - Mali's cotton output for the 2022/23 season is expected to reach 740,000 tonnes, down from a prior forecast of 810,000 tonnes, the head of the state cotton company CMDT said late on Thursday.
"We had made a forecast of 810,000 tonnes but with the problems of fertilizer supply, the floods, the attack of insects (jassids)... we have revised our forecast downwards to 740,000 tonnes," said Nango Dembele on state television.
Output for the 2021/22 season was 780,000 tonnes, he said.
Tiny green grasshopper-shaped parasites called jassids have infested cotton crops leading to a cut in production forecasts across West Africa for the 2022/23 season.
Mali was the top cotton producer in Africa last year. Other major producers include Benin, Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast.
Dembele also said Mali plans to open two new factories in 2024 to spin cotton fibre into yarn. They will be financed by a 200 billion CFA franc ($306 million) loan from China's Eximbank.
The two factories belonging to state spinning company Somafil will be in Bamako and Koutiala, the cotton capital, and will create more than 5,000 jobs.
Together they will be able to process about 15% of the 300,000 tonnes of cotton fibre produced in Mali each year, most of which is exported.
The factories will produce 24,000 tonnes of yarn annually from 45,000 tonnes of cotton fibre, Dembele said.
($1 = 653.5300 CFA francs)
(Reporting by Tiemoko Diallo; Writing by Nellie Peyton; Editing by Jan Harvey and Arun Koyyur)