More than four years after Nigeria’s Federal Government banned the import of packaged sugar domestic manufacturers are once more gearing up to increase production in 2018.

More than four years after the Nigerian Federal Government’s 2013 ban on imported packaged sugar, domestic manufacturers are gearing up production. Those producers had warned that lifting or not enforcing the ban would threaten around $6m of new investments in domestic factories. As the Nigerian economy continues to recover, forecasts for sugar consumption are looking positive.

Nigerian sugar producers only supply about 2% of the nation’s requirement. In 2008 Nigeria’s National Sugar Development Council (NSDC), proposed a road map for domestic self-sufficiency in sugar production. That road map estimated demand of 1.7m tonnes by 2020, requiring 28 factories and 250,000 hectares of sugar cane production.

This week, Aliko Dangote released a typically punchy forecast that his company’s sales volumes of sugar could rise as much as 25% in 2018. Dangote Sugar is planning to process 1.08m tonnes of white sugar annually over the next five years and ultimately reach and 1.5m tonnes after that.

In 2017 Dangote Sugar’s sales volumes of 507,185m tonnes represented a drop had of 17% in the 9 months to September. That drop came on the back of decreased demand from trade customers. The price of raw sugar has now come down and Dangote has reduced the ex-factory price for 50kg of sugar by 10% to N14,400 ($40) after after having raised prices last year.

Also this week the Sokoto state government signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Goronyo Sugar Company for the establishment of a new sugar factory in Sokoto state.