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Dangote Tops African Cement with plants in 14 countries

Posted by businessday9jabook on January 3, 2011 at 9:25pm
Dangote Cement Plc has emerged African‘s biggest cement manufacturer company with the presence of its plants in 14 different African countries.The countries include, Zambia, Tanzania, South Africa, Congo, Ethiopia, Cameroun, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Ghana and Senegal.The move, according to the company was to ensure that Africa remains self-sufficient in cement production and making the products easily available and at highly affordable costs to the end users.It would be recalled that the Boston Consulting Group, a United States-based rating agency, listed the Dangote Group among the top 40 African Challengers, which are companies of African origin with the potential to rival Fortune 500 Companies.Some of the criteria used in making the selection include size, growth and international expansion. Dangote Group has 13 subsidiaries spread all over Nigeria and it operates in over 14 African countries. All these enhanced its positive rating.While a whopping $400m was invested in Zambia for the construction of the plant, Dangote increased its stake in Sephaku Cement Limited, which is based in South Africa, from 19.76 per cent to 64 per cent, with an investment of R779m. The huge investment into Sephaku Cement by Dangote, is the largest ever foreign direct investment by an African company into South Africa. .President of Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, commenting on the global expansion of his business, especially his cement arm, recently said: ”By the middle of 2013, all our factories in Africa will be ready. We will be fully operational, manufacturing about 14 countries in Africa alone. The 14 factories are the ones on ground now. If there are opportunities in more countries, like in Zambia and Kenya, we will definitely go there. These 14 are purely in cement. But other countries are equally asking us to come and do some other things”He also said the group had also opened office ”in Dubai, Gibraltar, London and China and we will soon be opening an office in India”While commending the Federal Government‘s backward integration policy, Dangote said, ”Some people grumble about cement manufacturing versus cement imports. Fine. But let us look at it this way. The expectation is that Nigeria will be consuming about 20 million tonnes of cement next year. Twenty million tonnes next year will be, at least, even with the low prices abroad, about $2bn. Why should Nigeria spend $2bn importing cement. It doesn‘t make sense; it doesn‘t make any economic sense at all. We have all the raw materials to produce enough cement here and Nigeria should be exporting cement to Cameroun, to Chad, to Ghana. Ghana consumes four million tonnes per year and they don‘t produce one bag. We should be self-sufficient in cement production here, which is going to happen by next year.”
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