Ethiopia has sealed a major investment deal with Nigeria’s Dangote Group to construct a $2.5 billion fertiliser plant in the country’s southeast, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced on Thursday via X (formerly Twitter).
According to Business Insider Africa, the facility will be located in Gode, Somali Region, and is designed to produce three million metric tons of fertilizer annually.
The move is part of a broader effort by Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, to cut the continent’s reliance on imported fertilisers and bolster food security.
The agreement, signed between state-owned Ethiopian Investment Holdings (EIH) and Dangote Group, gives Dangote a 60% stake while EIH retains 40%.
In a statement, Dangote described the partnership as reflecting a “shared vision to industrialise Africa and achieve food security across the continent.”
Africa currently imports more than six million metric tons of fertiliser each year, a dependency that exposes farmers to global supply chain shocks.
A 2021 Afreximbank trade report revealed that the continent exported fertilisers worth $8.9 billion—over twice its import bill of $3.7 billion—driven largely by North African producers Morocco and Egypt, which together accounted for more than 70% of exports.
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Despite this surplus, major agricultural markets such as Ethiopia, Kenya, Côte d’Ivoire, Zambia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo remain heavily dependent on imports, highlighting the importance of new investments like Dangote’s Ethiopian project.
This latest move follows Dangote’s increasing role in reducing Africa’s reliance on external supplies, most recently with his refinery’s emergence as West Africa’s leading supplier of diesel and jet fuel.
Image Credit: thisdaylive
