LOME, June 16 (Reuters) - Togo’s cotton output is expected to return to pre-pandemic levels in the upcoming season, after shrinking 43% last year due to poor weather and declining prices, the nation’s largest cotton company said on Tuesday.

Togo’s cotton output was 66,000 tonnes in 2020, down 43% from the previous season.

“Overall, at the national level, results have been disappointing,” Martin Drevon, deputy director of the New Cotton Company of Togo (NSCT) said during a press conference on Tuesday.

He said that the steep decline over the course of the pandemic resulted from a combination of declining prices, poor seed quality and bad weather.

Cotton output for the 2021-2022 growth season, however, is expected to rise to 135,000 tonnes, Drevon said, as a result of a government plan to nearly double hectare development from the previous year’s level.

Togo’s total cotton output in 2019 was 117,000 tonnes.

Although Togo’s export revenues mostly come from petroleum, cotton accounted for around 5.8% of the West African country’s total exports in 2019, according to data from the Observatory of Economic Complexity. (Reporting by John Zodzi; Writing by Cooper Inveen; Editing by Louise Heavens)