The management of Dangote Sugar Refinery Plc has decided to drastically cut the country’s sugar importation by 40%, opening the door for the employment of over 30,000 young people.
Aliko Dangote, the President of Dangote Group, recently told newsmen that the company was starting Phase II of its sugar project, which will eventually encompass more than 100,000 ha and make the sugar mill the largest in Africa.
The integrated sugar complex, according to Dangote, would be built in the Nasarawa State local government area of Tunga, Awe, and will include a 60,000 ha sugar plantation and two sugar refineries with a combined capacity of 430,000 tonnes of refined white sugar annually.
According to the Nigerian Ports Authority’s (NPA) shipping data, Auarius Honor and Ocean Crown would be at Greenview Development Nigeria Limited (GDNL), a division of the Dangote Group, to discharge 45,850 tonnes and 46,750 tonnes, respectively.
In May of this year, GDNL received 187,000 tonnes from four boats as a result of the increased demand in the food and beverage sector.
Common Galaxy arrived at the terminal with 48,800 tonnes, followed by Bonny Island with 47,200 tonnes, Chayanee Naree with 46,000 tonnes, and Karteria Bluesrar with 45,000 tonnes.
Additionally, the terminal received 91,600 tonnes in April from the offloading of 47,200 tonnes by Unity Bluestar and 44,400 tonnes by Ecoatlantic.
According to the NPA shipping data, 67,000 tonnes of sugar were also released at ENL Consortium and GDNL; the ENL terminal received 20,000 tonnes from Doro, and Baltic Mantis discharged 47,000 tonnes at GDNL.
It also noted that Desert Calm berthed with 55,352 tonnes and Pauline with 46,070 tonnes, while Genco Picardy landed with 46,500 tonnes in February and two vessels offloaded 101,422 tonnes in January.
According to information obtained from the trade portal Index Mundi, the nation has already imported 965,000 metric tonnes of raw materials this year.
Also, the country imported $1.82 billion beet sugar, sugar syrups, and other sugar confectionery in the last two years.
Sugar is currently on the list of commodities on the foreign exchange restriction list of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Also, statistics from Trade Data Monitor (TDM) based on the Brazilian Foreign Trade explained that Brazil exports rose from $458.9 million in 2019 to $702.8 million in 2020.TDM estimates that Brazil’s total raw sugar exports to Nigeria for the 2020–21 season were 1.62 million tonnes, while domestic cane sugar production fell by 6.7 percent, from 75,000 tonnes to 70,000 tonnes.
The nation had anticipated achieving its goal of producing 800,000 tonnes of raw sugar by 2022 due to rising demand from the food and beverage industry and retail industries.
Nigeria, however, was unable to reach its five percent goal because, according to data from the National Sugar Development Council (NSDC), local production of refined sugar was only 25,000 tonnes in 2016, 20,184 tonnes in 2017, 14,918 tonnes in 2018, 28,597 tonnes in 2019, 75,000 tonnes in 2020, and 75,000 tonnes in 2021.
