The government owns almost all of the largest factories, but it encourages increased private enterprise. Most of the country's largest industrial plants were built with foreign aid. They include a cement factory, sugar mill, tannery, and textile plant. Mali has deposits of bauxite, copper, gold, iron ore, manganese, phosphates, salt, and uranium. However, the production of salt is the only major mining activity.
Some gold is produced.
Cotton is Mali's chief export. It earns about half the country's export income. Mali also exports fish, leather products, livestock, meat, and peanuts. Its leading imports include chemicals, food, machinery, petroleum, and textiles. Mali trades chiefly with other countries of western Africa, and with France and other Western European nations.