Dangote Group has concluded plans to purchase 10,000 Indonesian-made light pickup trucks. The trucks, called the rural multipurpose mechanical tool, are expected to be marketed in Nigeria.
Indonesian Industry Ministry’s Director of Maritime Industry, Transportation Equipment and Defense Equipment, Putu Juli Ardika, said that the vehicles would be purchased by Dangote through his company, Dangote Group.
Putu explained that Dangote Group was very interested in importing the trucks, also known as the AMMdes to provide more affordable means of transportation to rural people in Nigeria.
The director explained that the company was interested in the multipurpose vehicles to carry water and cassava and seed processors.
Putu said: “Dangote’s team will check three units as a sample to be brought to Africa at the end of January. The trucks are set to be exported over five years, with 1,000 units to be exported this year and next year.”
Dangote Group is a Nigerian-based enterprise that operates in fields such as cement, sugar and flour production. The company operates in Nigeria and other African countries such as Benin, Cameroon, Togo, Ghana, South Africa and Zambia.
With a net worth of $4.3 billion, Dangote is Africa’s richest man and one of the word’s 100 richest men according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
It would be recalled that the group had in the past partnered with China’s heavy duty truck group, Sinotruck, to set up a $100 million plant to assemble trucks and cars in the country for local use and export.
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.
Its Chief Corporate Communication Officer, Anthony Chiejina, had said that the company owned 60 per cent stake in the assembly plant while Sinotruck holds 40 per cent, in a partnership that was formed in 2014 to assemble components and knocked down parts in Lagos.
The company aims to meet an expected increased demand for transport in the country as the government focuses on boosting agriculture and farmers need to move goods across the vast country.
The plant has the capacity to assemble 16 trucks a day and will export to West Africa
Also, Chiejina said that the new plant could save Nigeria huge foreign exchange used to import heavy duty vehicles.
Furthermore, he noted that the plant would explore the exportation of trucks to other neighbouring countries, helping to generate FX for Nigeria.
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 nine billion yuan ($1.45 billion), accounting for about 13 per cent of the total sales.
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