Dangote’s truck assembly plant to create 3,000 jobs

16 Jan 2017
Financial Nigeria

Summary

The truck assembly plant, located in Ikeja, has a capacity to produce 10,000 trucks annually.

Aliko Dangote, President and Chief Executive, Dangote Group

The Dangote Group has established a $100 million truck assembly plant in Lagos in partnership with the National Heavy Duty Truck Group Company (SINOTRUCK), a Chinese state-owned truck manufacturing firm. The Nigerian conglomerate said in a statement released on Sunday that the plant will help it reduce the cost of importing trucks used to distribute products both locally and across other African countries.

The truck assembly plant, which is located in Ikeja, has a capacity to produce 10,000 trucks annually and is expected to create 3,000 direct jobs when fully operational.

Anthony Chiejina, Chief Corporate Communication Officer at Dangote Group, said the company owns 60 per cent stake in the assembly plant while SINOTRUCK holds 40 per cent, in a partnership that was formed in 2014.

Chiejina also said the new plant could save Nigeria huge foreign exchange used to import heavy duty vehicles. Furthermore, the company’s Chief Corporate Communications Officer noted that the plant will explore the exportation of trucks to other neighbouring countries, helping to generate FX for Nigeria.

“There will be room for project expansion in future as it meets the national truck demand,” he said.

Nigeria is a major market for SINOTRUK products. Dangote Group alone has over 10,000 trucks – the largest fleet in Africa. Dangote Group said it imported 12,000 trucks from China in 2014.

Founded in 1956, SINOTRUK is the largest exporter of trucks in China, accounting for 19 per cent of the total trucks exported out of the Asian country in 2014. The company’s revenue from overseas sales was 9 billion yuan ($1.45 billion), accounting for about 13 per cent of the total sales.

The SINOTRUCK assembly plant has been built ahead of the completion of Dangote’s $17 billion refinery, petrochemical and fertiliser plants, which have the capacity to produce 650,000 barrels of oil per day and 2.8 million metric tonnes per annum of urea and ammonia. Dangote Group said the refinery and petrochemical complex, which is expected to begin operation in 2019, would require several haulage trucks for product distribution. The project is also expected to create over 300,000 direct and indirect jobs.


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