Work at Dangote cement plant in Mtwara, Tanzania, is on schedule and will be completed end next year. The new plant will produce three million metric tonnes of cement per annum.

The company is investing a half a billion dollars in the project which will turn Mtwara town, into a booming city. In its annual report, Dangote Cement said, it has invested over US$1bn in sub-Sahara Africa during the last fiscal year. "In Tanzania, we have now begun work on a three million tons per annum (3mta) plant at Mtwara that is expected to be operational in late 2015," the report said.

Dangote Cement is achieving "steady progress" building projects in other African countries. In Ethiopia, work is underway to build a 2.5mta plant at Mugher, with plant installation expected to be completed by the end of this year. In Zambia, work is underway on a 1.5mta plant at Ndola, with cement production expected late in the second half of 2014. It noted that the group is reviewing plans for Kenya with a view to increasing the scale of our proposed factory from 1.5mta to 3.0mta.

"This is because we are confident there will be sufficient demand both in Kenya and neighbouring countries. We have secured a prospecting licence and are now in the process of upgrading it to a mining licence," the report says.

"In South Sudan, we have put our plans on hold owing to the unfavourable political and conflict situation that exists in the country at present. Building work is progressing with a 1.5mta grinding plant in Cameroon, with production expected to commence in October. In Congo we are building a 1.5mta plant due to open in 2016."

"Along the coast of West Africa, we plan to build import and grinding facilities to receive and process raw materials supplied from Nigeria, Senegal and elsewhere.

Work in Sierra Leone is nearing completion and we now anticipate it will commence operations in the final quarter of 2014, the report said.

Construction of Dangote Cement s Tanzania plant was inaugurated in May last year and is due for completion in 22 months. The establishment of the cement plant is in line with the Dangote Group s aim of expanding across Africa and increasing its capacity to 29 million tpa by 2015.