Dangote Cement will inaugurate its 1.5Mta cement plant in the Republic of Congo on Thursday. The plant is expected to create approximately 1000 jobs and will become Dangote's 10th fully-operational plant in Africa.

The US$500m works produced its first bag of cement on 7 August. Unaudited 3Q results show that the new plant has almost doubled the size of the cement sector in Congo, according to Vanguard.

Meanwhile, Dangote Cement saw an increase of 7.5 per cent in pan-African cement sales volumes for 9M17 while the company maintained its stronghold on its domestic market of Nigeria with a market share of 65 per cent.

“Our Pan-African operations are performing strongly with excellent sales growth in Cameroon, Ethiopia and Senegal”, said a representative of Dangote. The cement producer attributed the sales increase to strong brand recognition, increased point of sales branding, improvements in sales and marketing strategies as well as higher visibility through trade shows.