Aliko Dangote, President of Dangote Group, said that, while the economic circumstances in 2019 have been challenging, in four African countries, Dangote Cement was able to maintain 54,000 jobs, with its operations. The countries are Nigeria, Ethiopia, Senegal and South Africa. At the 11th Annual General Meeting in Lagos, the business mogul, who told shareholders that more jobs will be generated as the company intensifies the export of clinker from Nigeria to other neighbouring countries.
“We have funded 54,005 jobs (direct, indirect, induced) in these 4 business areas in the year under review,” he said, according to our 2019 socio-economic impact evaluation directly on our Nigerian, Ethiopian, Senegal and South African operations. Dangote told shareholders about the strong market climate that 2019 was a big year, disclosing the Group’s 23.7 million metric tons and sales of 891,7 trills in the majority of its operating geographies.
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“We posted a strong 44.3 per cent EBITDA margin. The Board recommended a dividend of 16.00 per ordinary 50 kobo share for your approval as part of this success.” He focused on the Nigerian local activities: “The cement market of Nigeria grew slightly in 2019. In the 20.7Mt forecast in 2018, we calculated that overall market demand increased between 2% and 3%.“
Dangote explained that the modest performance was despite the fact that disruptions relating to the 2019 electoral cycles, heavy rainfall and the loss of land export volumes due to the border closed down generally affected the market negatively. Nigerian operations at Dangote Cement remained at 14.1Mt, including export sales of 0.45Mt in 2019. Nigeria’s domestic sales were equivalent to 13,7Mt, up from 13,4Mt in 2019. This means a growth of 2 per cent reflecting the estimated annual GDP growth. However, due to the border closures in the last few months of 2019, exports of land have decreased to 0.45Mt from 0.7Mt for the full year.
“The promotion of Bag of products, which began in July, has increased our Nigerian volumes strongly in the third quarter,” said Dangote, adding that, given the 4.5Mt new capacity which was placed on the markets during the year, the company has retained its market share through a creative marketing campaign.”
He spoke of the new feat of Dangote Cement in the start of its export via shipping to West and Central Africa via the ports of Apapa and Onne, which also encouraged management to do their own offshore activities. While praising Dangote ‘s pursuit of investments, that he was excited by the progress made so far at the Dangote Refinery and Petrochemical plant, Godwin Emefiele, said that the refining and petrochemical plant could increase its workforce from the existing 34,000 to over 70,000, when it becomes operational.
Inputs from APO Group on behalf of Dangote Group
