The management of
The Company in a statement stated that the clarification was made in view of recent insinuations that the company sells cement in
Dangote's Group Executive Director, Strategy,
He said that though the Company has direct control over its ex-factory prices, it cannot control the ultimate price of cement when it gets to the market.
He advised that it is important to distinguish Dangote's ex-factory prices from prices at which retailers sell cement in the market.
He, therefore, frowned at what he described as intentional misinformation or demarketing, allegedly sponsored by some individuals, that Dangote sells its cement at higher prices in
He described the allegation as false, misleading, and unfounded, while giving the media persons present at the press conference copies of invoices from
Edwin further explained that while Dangote cement has 60% share of the market, other companies have the remaining 40%.
He further explained that "Demand for cement has risen globally as a fallout of the COVID crisis.
"To ensure that we meet local demand, we had to suspend exports from our recently commissioned export terminals, thereby foregoing dollar earnings.
"We also had to reactivate our 4.5m ton capacity Gboko Plant which was closed 4 years ago and run it at a higher cost all in a bid to guarantee that we meet demand and keep the price of Cement within control in the country."
He said: "Over the past 15 months, our production costs have gone up significantly. About 50% of our costs are linked to USD so the cost of critical components like: gas, gypsum, bags, and spare parts; has increased significantly due to devaluation of the Naira and VAT increase.
"Despite this,
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