Dangote To Invest In Ethiopia Sugar Industry
The president of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, said the group would be diversifying its investments in Ethiopia by looking at sugar production. It is known that Dangote Group has been active in Ethiopia in cement industry. Ethiopia produces enough of its own sugar to stop importing it this year and start exporting it, a turnaround that the government describes as revolutionary.
According to the minister for Public Enterprise, Fana Broadcasting Corporation, Ethiopia, newly constructed sugar refineries Omo Kuraz I and II and Beles I are scheduled to begin production this month. Construction is also planned for 10 new sugar factories, according to Girma Amente.
“The country is expected to have 13 large sugar factories by 2020, according to Ethiopian Sugar Corporation. “Ethiopian sugar production is meeting local demand with some surplus production expected this year.” Until recently, the country imported some 200,000 metric tonnes of sugar a year for local consumption.
The spokesman for the Ethiopian Sugar Corporation, Gashaw Aychlum said that, “Our production capacity had not been over 400,000 metric tonnes before. But now due to expansion and the new factories that will get fully operational this year, the nation will have a capacity to produce 700,000 metric tonnes of sugar this year.
“With this capacity the country no longer needs to import sugar, Aychlum said. “We could say the nation is in a state of ‘sugar development revolution.’” As a merchant in Nigeria, Dangote spent years importing Brazilian sugar. After a trip to Brazil in the mid-1990s, he shifted his focus down the value chain into agro-processing and manufacturing, Global Risk Insights reported.
It was only natural that Dangote’s first commissioned facility would be a sugar refinery. Coming online in 2001 and supported by his own 200,000-hectare sugar plantation, the refinery has expanded to become one of the largest refineries in the world. Active in Ethiopia since 2015, Dangote Cement has been importing bags into Ethiopia to package its products.
The business tycoon said that he plans to establish an Ethiopian packaging facility in few months as part of his efforts to diversify, Ethiopian News Agency reported in 2Merkato. “We are also looking at the possibility of looking at other areas, sugar and others, mainly agriculture, which we now discussed with government to move forward,” Dangote said.