Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, says he’s expanding his cement empire to Asia and it will be operational in 30 months.
The 58-year-old Nigerian billionaire said Dangote Cement Plc should complete a factory in Nepal by the end of 2017.
It has received 90 percent of the regulatory approvals needed to start construction in the south Asian nation hit by two earthquakes this year, he told Bloomberg.
According to Dangote:
“It’s going to be one of the first factories for us to build outside our comfort zone, outside Africa. Further expansion beyond Africa mainly will happen through acquisition.”
Dangote, who has never visited Nepal, will invest $400 million in the country to build a cement plant with a capacity of as much as 2 million metric tons.
He’s also eyeing South America and surveying for limestone in Brazil, where he registered a company two years ago.
Nepal’s government estimates reconstruction costs from April’s quake, which killed thousands, alone will exceed $10 billion, even before the country was hit by a separate 7.3 magnitude quake last month.
“It will be a major boost for them, especially with what happened,” Dangote said. “They don’t produce cement at the moment, they import mainly from India.”
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