Dangote Closes Tomato Paste Plant, Blames Forex Scarcity

An executive director of Dangote Plc, Devakumar Edwin, has revealed that the tomato plan factory of the company will be shutting down due to forex scarcity. He claims without forex, the company cannot import raw materials Dangote shuts tomato paste plant over dollar scarcity

“Where the foreign exchange is not available, we are cutting down our operations. For example, we had a tomato-based processing plant, we have shut it down,” Devakumar Edwin, a senior executive with Dangote’s business, told Reuters in an interview.This is now makes it two cases of prominent factory shutdowns in the tomato business. Just last November, the CEO of Erisco Foods, had announced that his factory will be shutting down for the same reason.

Nigeria produces around 1.5 million tonnes of tomatoes a year but the bulk of them begins to rot before they get to the market due to poor roads and storage facilities.