ABUJA (Reuters) – Amid a sluggish construction market, Nigeria’s biggest builder Julius Berger plans to diversify into cashew nut processing to take advantage of strong foreign demand, it said on Tuesday.
Julius Berger has built major roads and bridges in Africa’s biggest economy, but the construction market has yet to pick up strongly following two recessions in recent years.
Nigeria is the sixth-largest cashew producer in the world and a main grower in Africa, which accounts for more than half of global production.
But only 5% of output is processed locally, Julius Berger said.
Amid strong demand from the European Union, Japan, Canada and the United Arab Emirates, Nigeria has a huge untapped potential for exports of cashew kernels, the company said.
It plans to commission a cashew processing plant in Lagos, marketing manager Oyindamola Asaaju said at the agricultural conference in Abuja.
President Muhammadu Buhari told the central bank in 2019 to stop providing foreign exchange for food imports in a bid to promote policies aimed at stimulating growth in the agricultural sector to reduce the country’s dependence on oil.
The bank has also banned access to dollars for certain items it felt could be produced in Nigeria to conserve its foreign reserves.
Julius Berger shares were down 0.19% to 26 naira on Tuesday. They have fallen from a peak of 126.96 naira in August 2008.
(Reporting by Camillus Eboh; Writing by Fikayo Owoeye; Editing by Chijioke Ohuocha and Mark Potter)
