President/Chief Executive, Dangote Industries Limited, Aliko Dangote, has disclosed plans to contribute $100 billion investment into the $1 trillion economy projection by the government of President Bola Tinubu.
Mr Dangote disclosed this when he addressed creative industry stakeholders from Northern Nigeria, including content creators, journalists, bloggers, entertainers and Kannywood stars at the Dangote Refinery complex in Lagos on Thursday.
Dangote explained that the contribution would be the expansion of his existing investments to boost his businesses and create jobs for Nigerians, aimed at complementing the Tinubu’s $1 economy projection toward achieving the Vision 2030.
“When Mr President announced that Nigeria would become a $1 trillion economy, i said we would contribute to 10 percent of it, that is $100 billion.
“I said let’s see, what can we do, what is our own share of contribution? Our own contribution is to do $100 billion, which is 10 percent. Which is a lot. 10 percent out of the Nigeria’s economy is huge. And so, i see our vision the way that it is. We didn’t pick the $100 billion up yet.
“Every business of ours has a contribution to make. The refineries have a contribution to make, the one in Kenya has its own contributions to make. The other ones we are rolling out, each business that we have must contribute towards that $100 billion investment.
“Every company has his own target. If you are in sugar, you have your target of what to do to meet up with that amount of money. So, that’s what you have actually done. So, that’s why we are now reviewing, to say that we can even do more because every business has been challenged as to contribute.
“So it will create a lot of jobs. It will also create a lot of capacity. Like what itold you, the 90, 000 people are going to work here. Maybe 20, 000 maximum, you know, what you call the 20 000 foreigners, you know, that will also train more Nigerians. The last time we did. We had over 67,000,” he said.
Dangote also disclosed that he was able to turn around most of his businesses, citing his cement plants, which according to him, was now operating independently without relying on market to source foreign exchange.
“We have actually turned around most of our businesses, even our cement today, we don’t go to the foreign exchange market to buy a dime. We used to buy $30, $35 million dollars every month. Now we don’t.
“So, that’s how we have actually been able to transform all our businesses and now have taken them to a much larger scale. And now, this same Vision 2030. We’re actually investing over.
“It was actually $50 billion investment. Now, i think we’re pushing it up to about $70 billion in terms of investment in Africa between now and the 2030,” he added.
