Africa’s richest man and President of Dangote Industries, Alhaji Aliko Dangote has revealed the intension of his company to generate about 12,000 megawatts of electricity for the country by 2018, adding that his business estate would start selling foreign exchange, forex, to the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN by the year 2020.
Disclosing this yesterday at the Nigerian Economic Summit organised in Lagos by Economist Events, an arm of The Economist of London, Dangote said, “We are looking at a situation that by 2020, we will be the one selling FX to the CBN. Our projects are mainly import substitution. We are working to be self-sufficient to grow about a million tonnes of rice over the next five years.
“Our gas project would have our gas pipelines on the seabed. The output should be able to provide about 12,000MW of power. We see a lot of transformation when we are done with most of our projects by 2018.
“We have 15 countries in the ECOWAS community that are duty-free. The export market is big and profitable if you have the capacity. Players in the manufacturing (sector) should be encouraged to export if they have the capacity. We must also meet local consumption.” The industrialist went on to state that the fall in the price of crude oil should not be seen as a curse but that the nation must use the opportunity to explore the potential in other sectors of the economy.
According to him, “This is the right moment to pursue the diversification of the economy, which we have been talking about. I know that once oil gets back to $80 per barrel, we will go back to the same misbehaviour.
“But I think this is the right time for that. Government must come up with the right policy, because if we don’t do it now, we may not do it. But low prices do not mean doom. In 1998-1999, the price of oil was $9. What we need to do is just to block the leakages and pursue diversification.”
Noting that the monthly revenue inflow from oil, which used to be $3.2bn, is now around $1bn, he stated that this has caused a number of challenges for businesses in the country, adding that: “There are some areas where we are facing serious challenges and there are some where we are not. It depends on your business model. If your business model is to import 100 per cent, definitely, you will be facing challenges, because the inflow of foreign exchange is not where it used to be a year and a half ago.”
Also speaking at the event, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Mr. Okechukwu Enelamah revealed that the focus of the Federal Government was on creating an enabling business environment to attract investment and fast-track industrialization, adding that efforts were being made to give adequate support to Micro, Small and Medium-scale Enterprises.
His words, “The key is to create the right incentive, regulation and policy so that people can work with them and do more locally than just importing. The other thing I should mention is that Nigeria has an industrial revolution plan developed by the last government, but the plan needs to be revisited.
“We need to look beyond the rhetorics and actually implement what we are talking about, because I believe that if we implement them, we will get better result.”
The Minister went on to state that the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government had made employment, local production and inclusive growth of the economy its top priorities.
No comments:
Post a Comment