Dangote to invest $1 billion dollars in 5 States of Nigeria, Read President GEJ's comments

The Federal Government of Nigerian through its Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and Dangote Industries Limited, parent company of the Dangote Group, at the weekend signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to establish fully integrated rice production and processing operations nationwide.

The deal, which signing ceremony was presided over by President Goodluck Jonathan, would see Dangote Industries investing $1 billion (about N165 billion) in response to the on-going reforms of the President’s Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA) launched in 2011.

Already, Dangote has acquired farmland totaling 150,000 hectares in Edo, Jigawa, Kebbi, Kwara, and Niger states, for commercial production of rice paddy.

According to a statement by Dangote Group on Sunday, as part of the project, Dangote will also establish two state-of-the-art large-scale rice mills each with a capacity to mill 120,000 Metric Tons of rice paddy, bringing total capacity to 240,000 metric tons.

With such installed capacity, the Project becomes the largest single investment ever made in rice production in Africa.

The rice plant is estimated to produce 960,000 metric tons of mill rice, representing 46 per cent of rice imported into Nigeria. Even then, there are plans to double capacity within two years.

President Jonathan commended Chief Aliko Dangote saying:

“It takes a lot of hard work, commitment and discipline to achieve the feat, accomplished by Aliko Dangote.

Today is a great day for Nigeria and this investment is worth the risk. The country is capable of producing rice that can feed the whole of West African sub-region”

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