HARARE, Nov 12 (Reuters) – Nigeria’s Dangote Group will invest at least $1 billion in a pipeline, power generation and cement plant in Zimbabwe, its founder and CEO Aliko Dangote said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Dangote, Africa’s richest man, met Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa and signed an investment agreement with the government on Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n
Sign up here.<\/a><\/p>\n “We have just signed an agreement between Zimbabwe and the Dangote Group to do various investments in various sectors some of which are of course cement, power generation and a pipeline to bring petroleum products,” Dangote told reporters in Harare.<\/p>\n He said the pipeline would complement the Dangote Group\u2019s plans to establish the biggest oil refinery in the world.<\/p>\n The industrialist previously visited Zimbabwe in 2015, then under the late President Robert Mugabe who was replaced by Mnangagwa after a 2017 coup, but abandoned plans to invest in the southern African country for unclear reasons.<\/p>\n Asked what had changed, Dangote said: “There are quite a lot of changes between that time when we came and now. The government is solid, there is a lot of transparency.”<\/p>\n The Dangote Group has operations in 17 African countries and one of its subsidiaries, Dangote Cement (DANGCEM.LG), opens new tab<\/a>, is a leading cement manufacturer on the continent.<\/p>\n Reporting by Chris Takudzwa Muronzi, editing by Nelson Banya and and Bill Berkrot<\/p>\n Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab<\/a><\/p>\n