China Helping African Businesses Than U.S., Europe — Dangote

Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, has said China dominates business on the continent largely because of the absence of the United States and Europe, warning that Western nations risk losing Africa’s multi-billion dollar infrastructure market to China.

Dangote spoke in a 50-minute podcast with Nicolai Tangen, Chief Executive Officer of Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, Norges Bank Investment Management.

“Honestly, you want me to be very open? Totally. So it’s China. China really have dominated business in Africa and how? Because of the absence of the others,” Dangote said.

He explained that China’s dominance was not just about pricing but about financing structures that allowed African businesses to grow without depleting their cash reserves.

“Like in cement, like some of the things that we do, purchase of their equipment, they give you a suppliers credit backed by their insurance company, which is called Sinosure.

“Sinosure has invested about $1.2trn in supporting their companies to go abroad and sell their technology, sell their equipment and giving you a credit of four, five years,” he said.

Dangote compared this with the approach of European suppliers.

“If I now go to Italy, for example, and they are asking me to write a check of a power plant of $500m, the Chinese are saying that no, no, no, just give me 20 per cent, the rest I will give you five years financing.

“Which one are you going to take if you are in my shoes? Obviously you take the Chinese one because the Chinese one means that I can do more. These ones will suck out my cash and I won’t be able to do much,” he said.

Despite his praise for China, Dangote said he sees signs that the United States is beginning to change its approach to Africa.

“Right now, I’ve seen that the US is also changing. This time around when I went to the Development Finance Corporation of the U.S., they just got about $208bn. They are very hungry for infrastructure and they are ready to lend,” he said.

He also cautioned Japan, which he said had been absent from Africa for too long. “I told Japan, you’ll be missing for a very long time. And today, when you are coming, make sure that you come with your own balance sheet on the table because we have choices of buying from many other countries. But if you don’t really come with that support, I have to go to a country that can give me that support for me to be able to leapfrog to the next level,” he said.

“Africa controls about 60 per cent of the world’s critical minerals. We have a young energetic population. We have the most arable land in the world, 60 per cent of the arable land of the world is there. And the minerals that we have, we are not actually processing any one of them. So the opportunities are enormous,” he said.

On the continent’s booming youth population, he said: “By 2050 we will have 1.6bn working staff. In Africa, the majority of our population is below 30, more than 70 per cent. My reflection is that the future is Africa.”

He further urged young Africans to remain on the continent.

“My own advice to young African people is to work hard and also have the belief that the future is greater than the current situation that we are in.

“ Africa is a promising land and they should stay at home and make sure that we collectively build our continent rather than just flying out somewhere else,” he said.