Dangote asks local investors to help govt diversify economy

As the nation’s economy comes under pressure due to the paucity of funds occasioned by the fall in the price of crude oil in the international market, President of Dangote Group has challenged private investors to rise up to the challenges by initiating fresh investments in manufacturing and agriculture.

The business mogul who lamented  over dependence on oil to the detriment of other viable sectors, urged Nigerian and international businessmen to lead in the task of diversification of the economy as the only viable option to the current economic quagmire.

Addressing some business executives in Lagos on the new initiatives of his pan African conglomerate, Dangote stated that it was apparent that Nigeria needed to move away from a monolithic economy that thrives only on trading of oil and gas.

He explained that the situation in Nigeria in which states government could not be able to meet their obligation to pay salaries and federal government not having enough funds to meet its needs called for concerted efforts to take drastic step that will move the economy away from its present one sector dominance to other areas like agriculture, mining and manufacturing.

According to him, his Group apart from building a refinery and a petrochemical company is also into fertilizer plant construction to help in agric sector while on the other hand, it has also invested heavily in rice cultivation.

He explained that all these ventures were capital intensive, but noted with prospects for massive job opportunities it was worth it.

Dangote urged Nigerians to see the current challenges being faced by the country as a passing phase that will strengthen the country’s economy in the future.

He expressed his abiding faith in Nigeria as an economically viable nation, noting that Nigeria still remained the destination of choice for investments despite the challenges and expressed the hope that with adequate support and encouragement from the government of the day, the current challenges would soon be a thing of the past.

“I have always said it that Nigeria is a good place to investment. God has given us in Nigeria what many other countries don’t have and they keep searching for it. We have got fertile land for agriculture, we have the minerals resources and we have oil. All we need to do is to harness them for our good.

“The present challenges we are facing should not deter us from going our economy. It shouldn’t stop us from investing. It’s just a passing phases.

Other countries which are referred to as developed started from somewhere.

They all experienced some of these challenges in the past. So I want us to see these challenges as obstacles towards attaining greatness,” he said.

Dangote told the Business executives that it was for this reasons that he had continued investing in Nigeria’s economy because “If Nigerians do not invest in their country, other people will not come. They will want to see our success story before they can come.”

Dangote also informed the customers of the on-going efforts to refine the company’s services, saying that going forward the customers will see a change in the delivery of the products hence forth.

Also speaking, his honorary Adviser, Engineer Joseph Makoju told the delegation that Dangote Cement is more than ready to meet and exceed expectations of its customers saying the production capacity expansions in all its plants are intended to make cement more available everywhere according to him, the Company has put in place certain processes to serve the distributors better than before.