Aliko Dangote, Africa’s foremost entrepreneur and president of the Dangote Group, has requested African countries to dismantle all economic barriers hindering free trade among the nations in order to achieve sustainable growth and development across the continent.
The leading private sector player also reaffirmed commitment
to his Pan-African conglomerate, Dangote Industries Limited, to solving some of
the economic challenges faced by the African continent and her people.
To realise this goal, the organisation has committed over
$20 billion on investments in several key sectors of the African economy.
Dangote said his massive investments were meant to turn
around Africa’s economic fortunes in the quest for sustained economic growth of
the continent through free trade and economic integration.
Speaking in Lagos at the launch of a special publication
“The World Ahead 2023” by the renowned media outfit, The Economist, Dangote,
who was represented by the group executive director/group chief risk officer,
Dangote Industries Limited, Adenike Fajemirokun, noted that the crucial task of
building a sustainable future that guarantees equitable growth and prosperity
for all, should not be the exclusive role of the public sector alone, but
should also involve the private sector.
“Our massive investments of over $20 billion across key
industries, including energy, agriculture, and infrastructure; our recently
commissioned 3 million metric tonnes fertiliser plant, expansions in cement
production, and our soon-to-be commissioned 650,000 barrels per day world’s
largest single-train refinery, are all set to empower farmers, foster backward
integration, create thousands of jobs, eliminate our dependence on imported
products, and improve our nation’s foreign exchange earnings significantly.
“We are also confronting environmental issues through our
investment in alternative fuels, as well as unlocking enormous opportunities in
the communities where we have our footprints, while ultimately ensuring that we
keep delivering huge value to our shareholders.
“The multi-layered issues that we face globally and across
regions today, ranging from rising energy costs, food insecurity, supply-chain
disruptions, access to quality healthcare, cyber security, inflation amongst
others brought about by the pandemic or other human factors like the
Russia-Ukraine war, call for an objective rethink of geopolitics and
geo-economics, especially as they vastly affect policy execution and the ease
of doing business in more vulnerable economies,” he stated.
Drawing the attention of the international audience to the
need for all hands to be on deck towards lifting Africa above the various
socio-economic challenges facing the member-countries, Dangote pointed out that
the African population has been growing exponentially.
“Nigeria, for instance, is projected to be the world’s third
largest population by 2050 surpassing the United States, only behind India and
China, so the question of sustained economic growth has become increasingly
critical and isn’t one for a single sector to tackle alone.
To secure the future of our country and our continent we
must forge strong public-private partnerships and dismantle regional barriers
with vehicles like the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA).”
Dangote advised that “going forward, the overarching
conversations, whether at global or regional levels, in emerging markets or in
OECD countries, must be refocused towards exploring the specifics of our
fast-changing world, in order to align public-private perspectives and identify
areas for collaboration for the collective good of people, planet, and profit.”
He commended ‘The Economist’ for putting together the
publication that was being launched, describing it as a rich body of work that
offers useful data for all sectors to draw insights from and synthesize the
same towards arriving at cutting-edge action points.
Obafemi Hamzat, Lagos State deputy governor, described the
publication as a valuable document for policymakers and strategic planners, and
noted that its contents reaffirm part of the strategies the Lagos State
government has executed to make Lagos assume its status as the preferred
destination of choice for investors.
According to him, Lagos has just 0.4 percent of the land
mass of Nigeria but has 11 percent of the country’s population, which explains
why some of the challenges in Lagos are peculiar to the metropolis, disclosing
that some of the strategies adopted by the state government are geared toward
solving the challenges.
He said Lagos was Africa’s fastest growing economy and added
that a key policy of the state government is to improve its investment profile
by providing an enabling environment. Hamzat also noted that the state has
invested billions of naira in infrastructure and technology, citing the Lekki
Deep Seaport as one of the enablers which has made Lagos to attract 60 per cent
of the foreign direct investment into Nigeria.
Also speaking, Mobolaji Lawal, regional executive and
managing director of Ecobank Nigeria Limited, hailed The Economist special
launch, as it provided an opportunity for knowledge sharing for the government
and private sector to explore emerging opportunities in the digital space.