By Bisola Adeyemo
The chairman of Dangote Sugar Refinery, Aliko Dangote, said the firm has revised its sugar production target to 550,000 metric tonnes achievable by 2024 in line with the revised plan on the Backward Integration policy (BIP) by the federal government.
Recently, the company urged the government to faithfully follow through with the Backward Integration policy in the sugar industry as the nation stands to rake in foreign exchange up to $700 million yearly from Sugar production self-sufficiency.
Speaking at the company’s 15th annual general meeting (AGM) held in Lagos, the chairman of Dangote Sugar Refinery, Aliko Dangote, said, allowing for distortions in the sugar masterplan framework will adversely affect the target of the nation attaining self-sufficiency as projected.
According to the leadership newspaper, Dangote described the backward integration policy as commendable which will not only reduce imports of raw sugar but save the nations enormous foreign exchange used for importation.
Addressing the shareholders, Dangote stated that despite the disruptions in the economy occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic, Dangote Sugar Refinery has announced an increase in production volume which rose by 13.7 percent to 743,858 tonnes in the financial year ended December 31, 2020, compared to 654,071 tonnes in 2019.
He stated that the firm posted a Group turnover of N214.3 billion a 33 per cent increase over the N161.1 billion in 2019, while in the same period the Sugar Group also posted a 6.9 per cent increase in sales volume from 684,487 tonnes in 2019 to 731,701 tonnes in 2020. Therefore, the board of the company declared a dividend payment of N18.22 billion to the shareholders, amounting to N1.50 per share.
According to Dangote, the improvements were attributable to operations optimization strategy despite disruption caused by civil unrest in last quarter of the year. “Our growth continued to benefit from the sustained efforts to drive customer base expansion and several trade initiatives and investments,” he stressed.