President of Dangote Industries, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, has
stated that his company would be able to generate about 12,000 megawatts of
electricity for the country in the next two years.
He also said that his business estate would start selling
foreign exchange to the Central Bank of Nigeria by 2020.
Dangote spoke in Lagos on Monday at the Nigerian Economic Summit
organized by Economist Events, an arm of The Economist of London.
He 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.”
Dangote said the fall in crude oil price was not a curse and
that the nation must use the opportunity to explore the potential in other
sectors of the economy.
He said, “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 misbehavior.
“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.”
“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,” he added.
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