If there is any Nigerian organisation that can lay claim to "providing your basic needs", then it has to be the Dangote Group, a company that has consistently remained a market leader. The Group has over the last three decades enjoyed increasing market share for its products. In 2006 alone, the

Dangote Group recorded an annual turnover in excess of N300bn ($2.5bn), a remarkable feat. The Group has, in the last 10 years, recorded phenomenal growth in all its manufacturing sectors as well as its haulage, insurance and real estate divisions. This success has strengthened the resolve of the Dangote Group to expand into oil and gas, steel, telecommunications and fertilizer businesses.

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Alhaji Aliko Dangote, a business graduate of Al-Azhar University, Cairo, is the founder and CEO of the Dangote Group, which he transformed from a small trading business started in 1977 into a multi-billion naira conglomerate spanning Africa. The Dangote Group is one of the biggest and fastest growing conglomerates in Nigeria. Its lines of business currently include cement, sugar refining, pasta, flour milling, salt, polypropylene bags, haulage, and port operations.

Obajana Cement plc is engaged in both bulk importation and bagging of cement as well as in local manufacturing. Its factories currently produce about four million metric tonnes a year of cement.

Dangote Sugar Refinery plc, the largest refiner of sugar in sub-Saharan Africa, has a production capacity of over one million metric tonnes a year and is embarking on an expansion programme to double output. Dangote refined sugar is of exceptionally high quality, distributed in 50kg bags.

With a salt production of about 480,000 metric tones a year, Dangote provides about 70% of the salt requirement of Nigeria.

Identifying with the global retailing trend, the Dangote Group is increasingly packaging its products in retail sizes. This has proven a successful strategy and enabled greater market penetration than was previously the case with its wholesale packaging.

The Dangote Group's compliance with best practices and standards has earned its products the sought after endorsement of the International Standards Organisation.

The Dangote Group uses major local and international print and broadcast media to promote its products. Special promotions, executed as the need arises, have played a vital role in the success of the brands in the Dangote stable. Dangote has promotional pay-off lines for its various products. For pasta: "Mama mia, how can I resist you"; for flour: "Always your daily choice"; for salt: "The essence of life"; for sugar: "Makes the difference"; and for cement: "For solid structures".

Availability, acceptability, affordability, durability, distinctiveness, credibility and satisfaction--these are the core values that the Dangote Group embraces. Dangote is committed to deploying globally acclaimed best practices in its processes and its quality control mechanisms. Dangote Group also places high premium on the wellbeing and skills of its workforce

* Dangote's Obajana Cement Plant in Kogi State was built at a cost of over N120bn and is the largest cement plant in Africa. Lines 1 & 2 were commissioned in May 2007, while the foundation stones for lines 3 & 4 have since been laid to increase plant capacity to 10 million tonnes per annum.

* Dangote Sugar Refinery plc was awarded the Best African IPO for 2007 by Africa Investor. Dangote Group was assigned an "AA" by Augusto & Co., a leading research credit ratings firm for business excellence, good profitability, sufficient working capital, good cash flow, large market share and good quality management.

* Dangote Flour Mills plc which was listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange on 4 February 2008, was 620% over subscribed in its IPO.