Dangote on track with $150m Cameroon cement plant

Nigerian billionaire and founder of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote on track with $150m Cameroon cement plant.

Largest industrial conglomerate in Africa, the Dangote Group is currently busy on building a $150 million cement plan in Douala, Cameroon.

The plant, built on the banks of the Wouri River, received its first raw material shipments from a quarry in the city of Tombel, which Dangote Cement Cameroon has approval to use for the next coming years.

Douala plant would revolutionize the cement industry in the country and stimulate the Central African economy, the company said in a statement.

Nigerian billionaire and founder of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote also plans to invest $400 million in constructing a large cement factory in Zimbabwe.

Recently the company opened up a cement plant in Ndola, Zambia.

Dangote is into cement manufacturing and importing, sugar manufacturing and refining, salt refining, flour and semolina milling and noodles and pasta manufacturing among others.

The company has cement manufacturing plants in South Africa, Zambia, Senegal, Ethiopia, Congo Republic, Gabon and Tanzania.

Housing Supply in Cameroon

With an annual poulation growth rate of 2.2 percent, and an urbanisation growth rate of 6.5 percent annually, Cameroon is 58 percent urbanised. 

Housing therefore presents a challenge and an opportunity. The challenge is how to provide housing in the cities and towns to this growing urbanised population, almost half of which live in informal dwellings and settlements. 

Cameroon’s housing backlog is significant. The government is looking for ways to overcome the housing deficit of close to 100 000 units a year. Government estimates that up to one million homes need to be built in the next five to 10 years to adequately house the growing population.  Of these, 300 000 are needed in Douala and Yaounde. 

The current housing stock is supplied by households mostly through self-build initiatives, government agencies, private developers (still in their infancy) and public-private partnerships (a model to be explored).

Property Market

The formal real-estate market is concentrated in urban and periurban areas and churn is concentrated in the higher value market. Because supply lags behind demand, which emanates from the growing middle class, Cameroonians in the diaspora, local and foreign companies, there is a constant increase of house prices.

On average, it takes a month to find accommodation in Douala, Yaounde and other main cities – although it can take as much as four months, given the undersupply.

It costs about 150 000 CFA francs (US$324) a month to rent a standard two bedroom house in Douala and Yaounde. In Douala and Yaounde, it may cost up to 15 million CFA francs (US$30 000) to build a standard three bedroom house, excluding the cost of land. The cost is less in the semi-urban areas.