Nigerian business mogul, Aliko Dangote has told investors at the ongoing United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) holding at New York that his factories employ extensive use of robots to drive production.
The Africa’s richest man stated this in a room at the headquarters of global law firm Shearman and Sterling LLC packed full with high level business leaders and international diplomats.
“Technology of course helps us a lot and our factories are state of the art with the use of robotics but we shouldn’t be overly tech oriented to create wealth” he said.
TheNewsGuru reports the Corporate Council for Africa invited the Africa’s richest man, and Rwandan president Paul Kagame to openly converse on Africa’s opportunities and challenges, and the ongoing movement to diversify African economies.
“Agriculture, agriculture, agriculture; Africa will become the food basket of the world.
“We should pray that oil prices remain low. This helps wean us off the dependency on revenues from petroleum.
“We must take oil to be the icing on the cake. We already have the cake,” Dangote told the gathering.
In addition to agriculture, Dangote cited Nigeria’s vast mineral resources and gas as well and the need to manufacture more goods locally for domestic consumption.
Dangote predicted that “five of the twelve million jobs needed in Africa soon must be created in Nigeria”.
Both he and President Kagame cited continued need for heavy investments in education and connected the need for young people to be well trained for the jobs of tomorrow.
Dangote offered advice to Americans, whom he said tend to rely on outdated news and wrong perceptions of Africa: “Don’t be lazy. Go there and find the real story for yourself. Things have changed”.