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Burkinabe tycoon Inoussa Kanazoe aims to win a large share of Togo’s cement market through the Lome-based subsidiary of his cement maker, Cim Metal Group.
Dangote Cement, which is owned by Africa’s wealthiest man Aliko Dangote, holds a significant share of the market.
Kanazoe has prioritized the Togolese market after successfully developing Cim Metal Group in Burkina Faso, My Engineers reported. The move is part of the tycoon’s plan to capture a sizable share of the cement industry in Francophone Africa.
In January 2020, Cim Metal Group awarded Germany’s Intercem Engineering a contract to build a 2.5-metric-ton per annum cement-grinding plant in Lome.
Global Cement reported that the plant would start operations in early 2021. However, Kanazoe already started marketing cement from its Togolese subsidiary in September 2020, My Engineers reported.
Cim Metal is operating actively in Burkina Faso through its CimFaso and Cimasso plants and in Cote d’Ivoire through its CimIvoire plant.
In 2019, Kanazoe also began rolling out Cim Metal in Mali after striking a deal with the Malian government, Jeune Afrique reported.
Competition
Dangote Cement is Africa’s leading cement producer, with operations in 10 countries. The group stated that it generates revenues of more than $2.3 billion, with a production capacity of up to 48.6 million tons per annum in Africa as of 2020.
News of Kanazoe’s operations in the Togolese market comes when some stakeholders in the Nigerian cement industry and Senate are pushing to liberalize the industry.
They plan to create policies to encourage market entrants and boost production to meet Nigeria’s cement deficit. Their end goal is to drastically reduce the commodity’s price in Nigeria.
