No. 429: Japanese general trading companies grow more active in Africa (February 6, 2012)

Business trend

Marubeni will get a comprehensive order to build two plants for the production of sugar and bioethanol using sugarcanes from Angola in southwest of Africa for about 50 billion yen. The sugar plant will have a sugar production capacity of 400,000 tons per year, and it will be the largest sugar plant in Angola, allowing Angola to produce its sugar demand domestically. The two plants are scheduled for full production in 2016.

The new bioethanol production plant will be the second plant of this kind in Angola. It will have a production capacity of 40 million kiloliters per year. The sugarcane field is 66,000 ha, and Marubeni will also work on the design of an irrigation system for the field. The company will introduce power equipment for in-house power generation using the strained lees of sugarcanes. The Angolan government expects the two plants to create about 15,000 employments. Marubeni got an order to reform the three fiber plants in Ruanda, the state capital, for 25 billion yen in 2010. Other general trading companies, such as Sumitomo Corp.and Sojitz Corp., are increasing presence hastily in Africa, because business opportunities are growing in such business fields as food production and environment protection with the increase of population.