According to CEOWorld magazine, Dangote, with a net worth of $10.5 billion, is the only African on the list, dominated by billionaires from Asia and Europe. He is the ninth on the world's richest manufacturing billionaires.
The 66-year-old billionaire, who acquired most of his wealth from his 85.2% majority stake in Dangote Cement, the largest cement producer in Sub-Saharan Africa. He credits much of his success to his maternal grandfather, who instilled a business mindset in him from a very young age.
Here is a list of the top 10 richest manufacturing billionaires in the world in 2023, according to CEOWorld magazine:
1. Reinhold Wuerth & family: $25.7 billion
2. Michael Hartono: $22.3 billion
3. He Xiangjian & family: $21.2 billion
4. Takemitsu Takizaki: $18.7 billion
5. James Ratcliffe: $18.2 billion
6 Goh Cheng Liang: $11.3 billion
7. Li Shuirong: $10.9 billion
8. Viktor Rashnikov: $10.5 billion
9. Aliko Dangote: $10.5 billion
10. Anthony Pratt: $9.8 billion
Dangote started his business in the early 1980s with a small loan from his uncle, and he has since built a vast amalgam with interests in cement, sugar, flour, salt, and other industries. Today, Dangote Group has operations in 10 countries across Africa across a range of industries, including Dangote Cement, Dangote Flour and Dangote Sugar.
In an interview online, on Business Day, Dangote described manufacturing as one of the potent ways of lifting people out of poverty through the creation of gainful employment. According to the Nigerian billionaire, countries smaller than Nigeria, such as Singapore and South Korea, had an average per capita GDP of 65,233 dollars and 31,846 dollars, respectively, due to their level of industrialisation.
He said this while delivering a paper titled “Agenda Setting for Industrialising Nigeria in the Next Decade” at the 2nd Adeola Odutola’s lecture to commemorate the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria’s (MAN) 50th Annual General Meeting (AGM).
“It is evident that manufacturing is pivotal to industrialisation. No country in the world has ever industrialised or attained ‘developed nation status’ without having a thriving manufacturing sector,” Dangote said. “Without a doubt, manufacturing is the heartbeat of industrialisation and the bedrock for inclusive economic growth and development,” BusinessDay reported in 2022.
