Aliko Dangote, president and CE of the Dangote Group, one of Nigeria’s most diversified conglomerates, has applauded the decision by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to stop sale of foreign exchange to importers of 40 identified goods and services that can be produced in the country.
Some of the products affected by the CBN directive to banks and Bureaux de Change operators include Rice, cement, margarine, palm kernel/palm oil products/vegetable oil, meat and processed meat products, among others.
He said that with the $9 billion Dangote oil refinery under construction in Lagos, expected to begin production in 2017, the group could earn up to $10 billion in foreign exchange from exporting cement and petroleum products.
By 2017 also, he assured, “we (Dangote Group) would not go near CBN for forex.”
By the end of this year, Dangote Cement plants across the country would operate on coal, instead of gas which is problematic. He also said that the factories would be emission-free despite the conversion to coal, which the country has in abundance.
The group’s Senegal cement plant, for example, he said, “operates on coal and there is no emission… it is very clean. Running on coal by our study is cheaper than gas.”
