The President of Dangote Industries Limited, Aliko Dangote, says the company’s cement expansion plan and fertiliser investment are strategic to opening new trade routes for Nigeria under the Africa Continental Free Trade Area.
Dangote disclosed this in a statement on Sunday.
He said the cement company, with an installed capacity of 29.3 million tonnes per annum in Nigeria, was targeting an expanded entity in Cameroon, revealing that new plants will soon be ready in Niger, Benin, Ghana, Cote D ‘Ivoire and Togo.
According to him, there is a need for Africa to improve its per capita consumption of cement to aid infrastructural development by stimulating further demand and forcing down the cost of the commodity.
Dangote said the report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development on the development of deficit infrastructure to ensure competitiveness in the AfCFTA had moved the company to leverage the deficit with its cement investment.
“For Dangote Industries Ltd., moving goods like cement by road from Nigeria where they are manufactured to Ghana, where there is a big market, is ‘unviable,’ hence the need for new plants that will open multiple trade routes,” he added.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Mines, Industry and Technological Development of Cameroon, Gabriel Dodo Ndocke, hailed the move saying since the establishment of Dangote Cement in Cameroon, accessibility to cement products, the price and the quality have become more enhanced.
“Today, you can get cement everywhere and the price is accessible for everyone and the market has been open to other investors creating job opportunities. Dangote has thrown the market open and before he came to Cameroon, our market was with just one investor in the sector.
“The presence of other investors has made it easy for us to get cement in good quality and at an accessible price,” he said.
The AfCFTA, which took off on January 1, 2021, is aimed at creating a single market for the movement of capital, goods, people and investments to further deepen Africa’s economic integration.
