…As Dangote plans MoU with Morocco, Congo on raw materials
By Amechi Ogbonna
The Federal Government yesterday restated its commitment to creating a conducive environment for businessmen and budding entrepreneurs to realise their aspirations of job creation and growing the economy.
Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Mr Okechukwu Enelammah, who stated this at the Nigeria Summit, themed, ‘The Dawn of a New Era” organised by the Economist Events in Lagos, on Monday, said government intends to achieve this objective through giving the investment climate the right impetus to support various economic actors in the country.
He said ‘ We are working with various agencies of government to eliminate the bottlenecks on Ease of Doing Business as we institute a disciplined commitment, working with the private sector to grow the economy. We are partnering the private sector to break new frontiers and government is determined to implement the Nigeria Industrial Revolution Masterplan, sector by sector and layer by layer to achieve our desired goal”.
Enelammah said the government would be more serious with financing of the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) by enhancing their processes to accessing financing, adding that the renewed focus on high priority areas of job creation, infrastructure investment, local production, and inclusive economic growth will obviously lift the country up the global ease of doing business ranking.
The Minister stated that he remains cautiously optimistic that there was nothing wrong with Nigeria that cannot be fixed, stressing that it was now time to implement policies that can lift the economy and less of talking. He said “if you talk without implementing it you are merely wasting time”
Meanwhile Dangote Group Chairman, Alhaji Aliko Dangote said at the event that he was planning to buy phosphate and potash from Morocco and Congo-Brazzaville respectively to feed his proposed fertilizer plant. Dangote has raised a $3.3 billion loan to develop a $9 billion oil refinery and petrochemical complex in Nigeria having invested $3.5 billion of its own equity.
He told participants at the Nigeria Summit in Lagos, where he featured in a panel discussion that his firm was close to signing a deal with a Moroccan firm to supply phosphate for the fertilizer plant.
He also said his planned oil refinery would have a capacity of 650,000 barrels per day (bpd), up from an initial plan of 400,000 bpd. “We can actually build 30 percent cheaper than previously,” Dangote said, referring to lower construction cost as a result of cheap global steel prices.
The refinery and petrochemical complex will come on stream around 2018 as the group is also constructing an under- sea gas pipeline to link its oil bloc in the Niger Delta region to Olokola Gas Station and subsequently the West Africa Gas Pipelines.
According to Dangote, the pipeline will be able to transport 1.5 billion standard cubic feet of gas per day, adding that there are other big plans for mass production of agricultural products including rice.
Dangote said his firm planned to produce one million tonnes of rice within five years. Nigeria imports annually 2.8 million tonnes of rice, the majority of which is smuggled into the country, he said.
“Our projects are mainly import substitution.” he said. “We are working to be self-sufficient.”