By Franklin Alli

The Dangote Group says their aggressive expansion of cement plants across the country is not to monopolies the industry but to ensure government’s target of self sufficiency is met next year.

“The aggressive expansion of our local production capacity at our plants is to ensure there is always adequate capacity to meet local demand and export so that this country never again has to import cement to meet her requirements,” said Sunday Adondua, DGM Production, Ibese Cement Plant.

Speaking during a meeting with the Director General, Standard Organisation of Nigeria, Tuesday, Adondua, said: It’s not that we want to monopolise the sector; we are therefore challenging other manufacturers and prospective investors in cement to come aboard and let’s meet local demands.

He said that of the existing local players, Dangote alone, accounts for 50 percent of the market share. “All our Nigerian cement plants combined already give us a figure of over 20 million metric tonnes per annum capacity, making us a power house in cement production in the country and in Africa. Dangote’s vision is to become among the top global cement manufacturers.”

In a related development, the Director General, Standards Organisation of Nigeria has disclosed that the amount it costs the country to import cement yearly has dropped from N300 billion to N30 billion between 2010 and 2011, thus saving the economy N270 billion.

“Federal Government’s import substitution policy for the cement industry is working!  In 2010 N300 billion was spent in buying imported cement; last year N30 billion was spent in importing cement, and in 2012, government has not issue license to import cement.