From Cotton to Value: The Story of Sudan’s Textile Industry, from the Glory of the Past to the Economy of the Future (1–4)

Noaman Yousif Mohammed
Sudan could have written much of its modern economic story through a single crop: cotton. It was not merely a cash crop exported from the Gezira Scheme to global markets, but a link between land, water, farmers, factories, trade, and foreign currency. Around it emerged one of the most important attempts to build a productive economy that connected agriculture with industry and transformed local resources into economic value.
Cotton cultivation began at Tayba in the Gezira in 1911 and later expanded with the construction of the Sennar Dam and the irrigation network. The dam was completed in 1925, and approximately 80,000 feddans were irrigated during the first season. The Gezira offered an ideal environment for this project, thanks to its fertile soil, the waters of the Blue Nile, and the potential for gravity-fed irrigation.
However, the Gezira Scheme was not merely an agricultural project; it emerged within a broader economic context aimed at producing cotton on a large scale and supplying raw materials for the textile industry. From its early beginnings, the government, farmers, and the Sudan Plantations Syndicate developed a relationship, sharing production revenues under a defined system, before the company’s functions were transferred to the Gezira Board.
This experience mattered because it did not separate farmers from the market, or production from finance, marketing, and management. The foundations of an integrated economic system began to take shape early on, although the greatest value generated by cotton was still realised outside Sudan.
When Cotton Became an Economic Power
Cotton quickly became one of Sudan’s most important sources of economic strength. International Monetary Fund data show the significant role cotton exports played during the years of prosperity. Between 1947 and 1951, Sudan achieved a cumulative trade surplus of about £61.7 million, a current-account surplus of about £50.1 million, and an increase in official reserves of about £38.4 million.
The year 1951 was exceptional: cotton export revenues reached approximately £47.5 million, out of total exports worth £79.6 million—nearly 60 per cent of the country’s total export value.
This was not merely a success for an agricultural crop. Cotton directly affected Sudan’s ability to finance imports and build foreign-currency reserves. However, the experience of 1952 also exposed the fragility of relying on raw-commodity exports, as cotton revenues fell from £47.5 million to £29 million and total exports declined from £79.6 million to £46.7 million.
The lesson was clear: agricultural wealth alone is not enough unless it is transformed into added value within the national economy.
From Cotton to Industry
This led to a natural question: why should Sudan export cotton without manufacturing it into yarn, fabric, and clothing?
Thus, the spinning and weaving sector gradually developed, benefiting from the proximity of several factories to cotton-producing areas, particularly in the Gezira. Documents from the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation indicate that textiles became an important sector of Sudan’s industrial structure, with potential for expansion in spinning and weaving, towels, carpets, furnishings, and ready-made garments.
The underlying idea was not simply to establish scattered factories, but to build an industry that would use locally produced raw materials and add progressively greater value before they reached consumers or overseas markets. Wad Madani and Al-Hasahisa were among the leading locations suited to this role, given their proximity to production areas, markets, and transport networks.
Wad Madani and the Memory of Industry
At the heart of the Gezira, Wad Madani became one of the cities associated with industry and textiles. The Blue Nile Textile Factory stands out in this history. Its activities extended beyond fabric production to include spinning, weaving, and finishing processes, including bleaching, dyeing, and printing. It also produced uniforms, school clothing, certain institutional requirements, and medical gauze.
This experience demonstrates that Sudan, at certain stages, possessed industrial capabilities that went beyond raw-material processing and approached finished-product manufacturing. This is an important point in understanding what the Sudanese economy subsequently lost: the decline was not confined to cotton production, but also affected the ability to transform cotton into higher-value products.
Among the names associated with this vision was the late businessman Fath al-Rahman al-Bashir, who moved from commerce into industry and established the Sharaf International Group, whose activities extended across several sectors, including textiles and ready-made garments. His biography records the establishment of textile factories, including the Blue Nile Textile Factory, Wad Madani Textile Factory, and Al-Huda Textile Factory, as well as the export of cotton yarn to several overseas markets.
This experience reflected an economic concept that went beyond trading cotton to investing in the stages that followed it. Genuine value is not generated only when raw materials are produced; it multiplies when they can be transformed into more complex, more marketable products.
The experience of the Managil Textile Factory, associated with the Farmers’ Union, is particularly significant because it raised a question that remains relevant today: why should farmers own only the raw material? At the same time, the greatest value is generated in subsequent stages far removed from them.
Farmers’ entry into manufacturing, through their institutions, was an attempt to connect agricultural production with added value, ensuring their relationship with industry extended beyond supplying cotton. This idea could become even more important in the future if farmers’ cooperatives or companies were to acquire genuine stakes in ginneries and textile and garment factories.
Al-Hasahisa and the Integrated Industrial Experience
Al-Hasahisa also witnessed an important industrial experience, with the Al-Sadaqa Factory forming part of the ambition to establish a spinning and weaving base. As industrial expansion gathered pace during the 1960s and 1970s, thinking gradually shifted from establishing individual factories towards building a production base capable of serving the domestic market and contributing to exports.
UNIDO documents from the late 1970s indicate the textile industry’s advanced position within Sudan’s industrial structure, as well as the existence of large factories either already operating or under construction, aimed at reducing reliance on imports, increasing domestic manufacturing, and creating export opportunities.
The economic direction was fundamentally sound: using locally available raw materials, reducing imports of manufactured products, creating jobs, generating added value within Sudan, and then moving into overseas markets.
When the Industrial System Broke Down
The problem, however, did not always lie in the absence of factories, but rather in the weakness of the environment that enabled them to operate sustainably. A factory requires a reliable electricity supply, spare parts, finance, skilled labour, competent management, production inputs, markets, transport, a banking system capable of servicing industry, and stable policies that allow investors to plan for years rather than months.
As imbalances accumulated, industrial capacity began to decline. Technical studies pointed to recurring problems involving energy, spare parts, personnel, and planning, in addition to weaknesses in spinning and finishing processes. According to figures circulating within the sector, fabric production fell from approximately 274 million metres in the 1970s to around 13.72 million metres in 2003.
This was more than a decline in production; it was a gradual loss of economic capacity accumulated over decades. When a factory shuts down, it is not only the machinery that stops. Technical expertise is disrupted, jobs disappear, suppliers’ markets contract, farmers lose a domestic buyer, the economy loses added value, and the need to import products that could have been manufactured locally increases.
That is why the right question when considering industrial reconstruction after the war is not merely: how much would it cost to restart the factory or purchase new machinery? It is: how do we rebuild the entire value chain and recover whatever knowledge, expertise, markets, and institutions sustain it?
The Textile Industry Is Not Just a Factory
The real story of Sudan’s textile industry was not a story of machinery and buildings, but of a system that began with land, water, farmers, and cotton, then extended to ginneries, spinning, weaving, finishing, clothing, markets, and exports. Each stage added new value, created jobs, income, and investment opportunities, reduced the need to import manufactured products, and opened the door to earning foreign currency.
Here lies the great paradox of Sudan’s experience: we had the land, water, and cotton; we built factories and developed expertise; yet we failed to preserve the system that connected these links and kept value within the national economy.
Consequently, restoring the textile industry after the war should not be an attempt to revive the past as it was. Rather, it should be an opportunity to rebuild a more integrated and competitive industry—one that begins with cotton but does not stop there.
This brings us to the question that will guide us into the second article: if Sudan possessed cotton, factories, and expertise, why did it fail to retain the greatest value generated by this resource? And where did the added value go that could have been transformed into production, jobs, exports, and foreign currency?
Former Banker – Institutional Development Consultant

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