Nigeria to save $400m forex as Candel agrochemical plant comes on stream

Farmers in Nigeria, Africa’s biggest economy, will receive a boost in their annual yields, save millions of dollars in foreign exchange and produce healthier seeds and high quality farm produce as Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos on Tuesday commissioned at the Lekki Free Trade Zone the Candel Company Limited’s integrated agrochemical manufacturing plant.

The Candel agrochemical plant which is a multi-billion naira project and the first of its kind in Nigeria and the West African sub-region, is a facility for crop protection chemical and forliar fertilisers which will not only produce about 80 million litres of formulated products per annum, but would also save Nigeria $400 million in foreign exchange expended annually to import such products.

Speaking at the commissioning, Fashola praised the management of Candel led by Charles Anudu, its chairman, for its vision, doggedness and commitment in the face of various challenges it encountered in a bid to set up the plant at the Lekki Free Trade Zone, enjoining all present at the event that regardless of the challenges the vision of the LFTZ may face, the Lagos State government will fix every one of them and deliver on a “free trade zone that will outlive all of us.”

Fashola, who also commissioned the Free Zone’s 12 megawatts (Phase 1) Southwest Quadrant power plant, stated that the power plant would from the date of commissioning, provide the zone and all its host communities with 24-hour uninterrupted power supply.

Earlier, Charles Anudu, chairman of the Candel, who praised the governor and Olusola Oworu, Lagos State commissioner for commerce and industry, as well as the entire management of the LFTZ for helping to make the Candel dream a reality, revealed that the commissioning was a culmination dream “to provide a Nigerian and indeed African context to the global agrochemical industry.”

“With a 2013 revenue of about $61 billion, Nigeria accounts for less than 1 percent to the global agrochemical industry, while the whole of Africa’s share is just about 4 percent. With no current local production, Nigeria expends about $400 million annually to import agrochemical products, a lot of which is of unwholesome quality”, he added.

Anudu declared that the Candel manufacturing plant was a challenge the firm took upon itself in order to stem the tide of sub-standard agrochemical products being dumped in the Nigerian and African markets which may impact negatively on the economy of the country and the continent.