Dangote Sugar’s $700m Bet To End Nigeria’s Sugar Import Habit

Dangote Sugar Refinery is doubling down on its long-stated ambition to wean Nigeria off imported raw sugar, pushing ahead with an expansion drive worth about $700 million across its entire value chain.

The company is channelling funds into large-scale land acquisition, new industrial machinery, factory upgrades, workforce development and community-focused CSR projects. Taken together, it is one of the boldest private-sector commitments yet under Nigeria’s sugar sector reform and backward integration agenda.

The renewed push was showcased at the Lagos International Trade Fair, where Dangote Sugar unveiled new product sizes – 100g, 250g, 500g and 1kg – signalling a more aggressive play in retail even as it deepens investments at the production end.

Fatima Aliko-Dangote, Executive Director, Commercial Operations, said the group remains committed to using industrialisation as a lever for job creation, value addition and economic diversification. She noted that the expansion aligns with the Federal Government’s backward integration policy and broader self-sufficiency targets.

At a time when foreign exchange scarcity and rising import costs are squeezing manufacturers, the company’s strategy is positioned as both a commercial move and a national economic intervention. By lifting domestic refining capacity, introducing new SKUs and consolidating operations across its sugar estates, Dangote Sugar is positioning itself as the anchor player in Nigeria’s sugar market – and a key tool in cutting the country’s multibillion-naira sugar import bill.

Nigeria’s Heavy Sugar Import Burden

Nigeria’s appetite for sugar remains far ahead of what is produced locally. The National Sugar Development Council estimates national demand at about 1.7 million tonnes annually. Local output, however, lags significantly, forcing the country to rely heavily on imports.

World Bank COMTRADE data show that in 2023 alone, Nigeria imported roughly 825,121 tonnes of raw cane sugar. Between July 2024 and June 2025, the country spent ₦953.9 billion on raw sugar imports. In March 2025, imports were around 98,000 metric tonnes.

Dangote Sugar wants to change that picture. Over the next five years, the company is targeting local production of 700,000 tonnes of sugar, with more than 75,000 direct and indirect jobs expected to be created across farms, factories, logistics, distribution and retail. The scale of current imports underscores why such investments are seen as critical to any realistic path toward sugar self-sufficiency.

Economic Upside And Backwards Integration

Group Chief Executive Officer, Ravindra Singhvi, described the $700 million investment as a core pillar of Nigeria’s backward integration blueprint for sugar. He said Dangote Sugar is speeding up field development and factory expansion with an eye on producing up to 1.5 million metric tonnes of refined sugar annually in the coming years.

Financial performance has been strengthening alongside the physical expansion. At the company’s 19th Annual General Meeting, Aliko Dangote disclosed that revenue jumped by 51 percent to ₦665.6 billion in 2024, compared to ₦441.5 billion in 2023.

Acting AGM Chair, Bennedikter Molokwu, said the numbers underline the refinery’s resilience in the face of high inflation, currency volatility and broader macroeconomic headwinds.

Shareholders also hailed Dangote Sugar’s status as one of Sub-Saharan Africa’s largest sugar processors, with a combined refining capacity of 1.49 million tonnes annually. Singhvi reiterated that the medium-term goal is to deliver 700,000 tonnes of locally produced sugar within five years while supporting over 75,000 jobs throughout the value chain.

With rising domestic capacity, ongoing capital injection and a more ambitious retail strategy, Dangote Sugar is placing itself at the heart of Nigeria’s long-term plan to phase out raw sugar imports and push the wider food industry toward genuine self-sufficiency.