By Adedapo Adesanya
Africa’s largest cement producer, Dangote Cement, has begun the export of clinker, which is used to produce cement, to other African countries.
In a statement released on Sunday, the company said it exported 27,800 metric tonnes of the product to Senegal during the weekend.
It also said it would work towards increasing the quantity of clinker exported to other African countries within the next few weeks.
The company said the milestone is part of plans to place Nigeria on the map as one of the top clinker exporters in the world while taking advantage of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement.
Speaking during the departure of the ship conveying clinker from its export terminal in Apapa, Lagos Mr Sada Ladan-Baki, group executive director of Dangote Group, said the increased exportation of clinker and cement to other African countries would boost Nigeria’s foreign exchange earnings and reduce unemployment in the country.
“The beauty of what we have done is that we are going to be generating foreign exchange for the country in terms of dollars and Euros. For every batch of clinker we export, the money comes back to Nigeria. The amount we are talking about is not small.
“Presently, Dangote Cement should either be number one or number two exporter of cement in Africa and the revenue we have generated in the form of foreign exchange is running into millions.
“Today, we have formally launched the Dangote Cement Export Terminal. We are still going to do another major launch when the second ship is going out of the country,” he said.
Mr Ladan-Baki said the company has helped Nigeria attain self-sufficiency in cement production from being on the top importers of the product some years back.
He said the company would soon also launch an export terminal in Onne, River State to enable the company export clinker, initially to its grinding facility in Cameroon and then to its new grinding plants across West Africa.
The director said this would not only generate useful foreign currency for Dangote Cement to support other expansion projects outside Nigeria, but it would also help to increase the output of the Nigerian plants which would help to improve job creation and increase prosperity in Nigeria.
“This terminal will assist Dangote to actualise the full potential of the company’s investment in cement. You know as usual when the rain comes, sales decline, but not clinker export.
“This feat by Dangote is going to generate a lot of jobs because the export terminal has already created jobs to many Nigerians. As at now, the numbers of employed Nigerians at the terminal have reached 100. We are targeting about 200 to 300 workers in Lagos terminal alone.
“The exportation of clinker by Dangote will also help the country compete effectively with every country that is in the business of exportation of clinker. At Dangote Cement, we are going about it aggressively and we are seeing it as an opportunity.
“What we have in plan is to send clinker from Nigeria to Ivory Coast, Cameroon and Ghana. Cameroon as an example takes about 82,000 metric tonnes every month. Our target is to export at least 4 million metric tonnes of clinker annually to various parts of Africa.
“That is our target that we hope to achieve within the next one to two years,” he added.
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