Sahel tea trade corridors: Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger

Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger have no coastline, so their tea from China is landed at a port such as Dakar, Abidjan, Lomé or Cotonou and carried inland by road, or by rail from Abidjan, under customs transit. China declared 22,176 tonnes of tea worth US$75.9 million for the three countries in 2025, against 9,066 tonnes in 2015, according to the figures China reported to UN Comtrade; the three recorded more tea from China than China declared for them in every year from 2017 to 2024. They left the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) on 29 January 2025. As of October 2026 their latest tariff data, for 2023, showed 10% duty on green tea, and no official text found had replaced ECOWAS’s request of that day to keep treating goods from the three under its trade liberalisation scheme.

China’s tea exports to Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, 2015–2025

In China’s export statistics the three markets appear as 马里 (Mali), 尼日尔 (Niger) and 布基纳法索 (Burkina Faso). Over ten years the tea China declared for them grew by 144.6%, and their share of China’s tea export volume rose from 2.8% to 5.3% (The Tea Trade’s calculation from UN Comtrade). Niger grew fastest, to 4.1 times its 2015 volume, and has taken more Chinese tea than Mali in five of the last seven years. Mali swings more: 11,956 tonnes in 2023, 6,608 tonnes in 2024 (−44.7%), then 10,326 tonnes in 2025 (+56.3%). Burkina Faso takes 429 to 1,119 tonnes a year.

China’s tea exports to Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, 2015–2025 (HS 0902, tonnes, and total value in US$ million; source: UN Comtrade, figures reported by China)

China’s 2016 weights in UN Comtrade are UN estimates, not reported figures, and are not shown. Totals and changes are The Tea Trade’s calculation.

In 2025 China declared 99.8% of its tea for Mali and all of it for Burkina Faso as green tea in packs of 3 kg or less (HS 0902.10), and no black tea for any of the three. Niger was the exception, with 3,925 tonnes, 35.4% of its tea, declared as other green tea (HS 0902.20), the subheading that covers packs over 3 kg. China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) lists tea among China’s main exports to Mali and to Niger in its 2025 country guides. China’s other markets are compared in our guide to Chinese tea export markets.

What Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso record: more tea than China declares

All three report their imports to UN Comtrade, and in every year from 2017 to 2024 they recorded more tea from China than China declared for them: 3.7 to 4.0 times as much in 2017–2020, 2.9 times in 2021, then 1.3 to 1.7 times in 2022–2024 (The Tea Trade’s calculation).

Tea from China to Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso: China’s declarations and the three countries’ records (HS 0902, tonnes; source: UN Comtrade)

Burkina Faso’s 2021 weight is a UN estimate. In October 2026 only Niger had reported 2025 data: 8,397 tonnes from China, less than the 11,082 tonnes China declared for it.

Source: UN Comtrade, figures reported by China and by Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso (2017–2024)

The United Nations recommendations for trade statistics (IMTS 2010) show how such a gap arises: importers record the country of origin, exporters the last destination known when the goods leave, and goods simply carried through a country are left out of its imports. Tea that China declares for a coastal country but that is sold on to Bamako or Niamey therefore counts as a sale to that country in China’s figures and as an import from China in Malian or Nigerien ones. Côte d’Ivoire shows the reverse gap: in 2025 China declared 16,701 tonnes of tea for it, 12.6 times the 1,322 tonnes Côte d’Ivoire recorded from China (The Tea Trade’s calculation from UN Comtrade data read in October 2026). China’s declarations for the three rose from a quarter of what they recorded in 2019 to 79.3% in 2023 and 67.1% in 2024, which is consistent with more Sahel-bound tea being declared for its final destination; that is an interpretation, not a measured fact.

Values disagree more: in 2024 the three valued their tea from China at US$1.18 per kg including cost, insurance and freight (CIF), against US$3.14 per kg free on board (FOB) in China’s declarations (value ÷ volume; The Tea Trade’s calculation), and the statistics do not say why. China supplied 90.8% of Mali’s recorded tea imports by volume in 2024 and 96.1% of Niger’s in 2025, but only 57.4% of Burkina Faso’s 6,890 tonnes in 2024, when India supplied 37.0%.

Port corridors to Bamako, Ouagadougou and Niamey

MOFCOM’s 2025 country guides (对外投资合作国别（地区）指南) describe each country’s routes to the sea.

Main transport corridors of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger (source: MOFCOM country guides, 2025 editions)

According to MOFCOM, the roads to Dakar and Abidjan carry most of Mali’s imports and exports, and the Dakar–Bamako railway has not run since May 2018. The port of Abidjan’s transit figures for Mali and Burkina Faso are set out in our Côte d’Ivoire tea imports guide, and Burkina Faso’s main road to the sea runs to Ghana, whose tea trade is covered in our guide to Ghana’s green tea imports.

Niger’s goods travel mainly through Benin and Togo, MOFCOM says, but the border between Niger and Benin has been closed since July 2023, so the Cotonou route cannot be used. On 16 June 2026 the two countries’ expert committees handed in their reports on reopening it to their heads of state, according to a joint communiqué of the two governments; it gave no reopening date, and no official announcement of a reopening was found in October 2026. Sailing times from China to these ports are compared in our guide to China–Africa tea shipping times. Transit to Chad is covered in our guide to Cameroon and Chad tea imports.

How tea moves in transit: the ECOWAS ISRT regime

Tea for the three crosses a coastal state in customs transit, duties suspended, and pays duty in the country of destination. The common framework is the ECOWAS inter-state road transit regime (ISRT; transit routier inter-États, TRIE, in French), set up by Convention A/P.4/5/82, signed in Cotonou on 29 May 1982 for the member states, Mali, Niger and Upper Volta, now Burkina Faso, among them. Goods travel by road from a customs office in one member state to one in another, through others, free of duties, taxes and restrictions while in transit:

• One declaration and seals. The goods move under an ISRT declaration in a numbered booklet of four leaflets, sealed, on a route and within a time limit set by the office of departure; transit offices check the seals and inspect the goods only if they suspect irregularities (articles 5, 6, 14, 15 and 18).
• No unloading on the way, except under customs supervision or after an accident (articles 1 and 20 to 23).
• A guarantee covering at least the duties and taxes payable and possible penalties (article 27). Under Supplementary Convention A/SP.1/5/90, signed in Banjul on 29 May 1990, each state designates a national guarantor, and each guarantee covers a single operation from the office of departure to the office of final destination (articles 3 and 4).
• Agreed routes: each state lists, with its neighbours, the routes and customs offices open to inter-state transit (article 39).

On 22 June 2025 ECOWAS heads of state called for the Interconnected System for the Management of Goods in Transit (SIGMAT) to be fully operational across the region.

Mali’s Customs Code, Law 2022-013 of 23 June 2022, defines international transit as carrying goods under customs control in suspension of duties, taxes and prohibitions, and provides that road transit between Mali and an ECOWAS member state is governed by the regime in force within ECOWAS (article 195). In October 2026 Malian customs still published, as its transit rules, Order 09-3014/MEF-SG of 19 October 2009.

Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger after ECOWAS: what is in force (October 2026)

ECOWAS heads of state acknowledged on 15 December 2024 that, under Article 91 of the community’s Revised Treaty of 1993, the three countries would cease to be members on 29 January 2025.

Official decisions on trade with Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, December 2024 to July 2026 (sources: ECOWAS, Mali Presidency, MOFCOM; checked October 2026)

MOFCOM’s Niger guide dates the levy 1 April 2025, and the text of the AES decision was not found on an official website.

Tariffs. No official text found has changed the duty on tea. The three reported 10% on green tea, packed or in bulk, in every year of tariff data from 2001 to 2023, the latest available in October 2026 (UNCTAD TRAINS). They remain members of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU, UEMOA in French), whose common external tariff has applied since 1 January 2000, according to MOFCOM. Mali’s Customs Code defines the common external tariff as that of ECOWAS, and in October 2026 Mali’s customs website still posted the ECOWAS tariff, in a file dated 5 April 2023; MOFCOM’s 2025 Niger guide lists green tea at 10%. The levies and VAT added on arrival, and the open question of the ECOWAS levy, are covered in our West Africa tea import duties guide.

Transit. No official text found says whether, or how, the ISRT convention applies to goods bound for the three since 29 January 2025. ECOWAS’s statement of that day deals with goods coming from them and does not mention transit, and Mali’s Customs Code still refers road transit with ECOWAS states to the ECOWAS regime.

What this means for tea exporters and importers

• The destination on the export declaration. China records the last destination known when the tea leaves, so tea declared for Dakar and sold on to Bamako counts as a sale to Senegal. Agree with the buyer which country goes on the declaration.
• The route. Choose the port with the buyer and the forwarder, and check the Benin–Niger border before routing tea for Niger through Cotonou.
• Transit. Expect duties to be suspended in the coastal country against a guarantee, and paid in Bamako, Ouagadougou or Niamey.
• Checks before shipment. Mali’s customs say the country ended pre-shipment inspection: since 1 January 2018 a company mandated by the government has checked import documents only, and goods are scanned on arrival. Burkina Faso’s import procedures on its trade ministry’s portal, updated in late 2024, include no inspection before shipment, although no text ending its 2004 inspection programme was found and customs still collect a contribution to the verification programme of 1% of the FOB value. Ask the buyer which programme applies. Our guide to pre-shipment inspection for tea in West and Central Africa compares the rules country by country.
• Charges. Allow for the 10% duty plus the levies and VAT of the country of destination, and ask its customs whether the AES and ECOWAS levies are collected.

This is general information, not legal or tax advice: have a customs broker in the country of destination confirm the route, transit procedure, documents and rates before each shipment.