Dangote Group to expand into dairy production

Dangote Group, Nigeria’s largest company by market value, with interest in cement manufacturing, oil and gas, sugar, among others is planning to go into dairy manufacturing.

The company has confirmed plans to commence dairy farming in 2018, starting with 50,000 cows, with milk production to begin in 2019.

While speaking to Bloomberg on Tuesday, Mr. Edwin Devakumar, the Executive Director, Dangote Group, said that the company plans to invest $800m in dairy production in the next three years.

He added that the group was finalizing plans to grow its agro-sector business interest in the coming years and would look to investing about $4.6bn towards achieving that goal.

Part of the massive expansion drive includes spending $3bn in boosting its sugar and rice production across Africa. It plans to increase its sugar production output to 1.5 million tonnes per year, from its current 100,000 tonnes by cultivating 350,000 hectares (864, 850 acres) of land. Rice production will also grow by 1 million tonnes with the cultivation of 200,000 hectres of land.

Dangote is also keen on increasing investment in its cement business, its most profitable enterprise by about $4bn over the same period as it seeks to consolidate its hold as one of the continent’s biggest cement producers.

Devakumar said that due to low liquidity in the foreign exchange market, companies need to look inwards to investing in local agriculture to help meet food demand from Nigeria’s 180 million population.

All raw sugar has to be imported today, same thing for flour milling,” he said.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *