In six days, on 13 October, London once again becomes, for forty-eight hours, the place where part of Africa’s financing gets negotiated. The thirteenth edition of AFSIC – Investing in Africa opens at the Park Plaza Westminster Bridge with the fullest programme in its history, just as the money bound for the continent is concentrating...

Cement, sugar, fertiliser and now the continent’s biggest refinery. Africa’s wealthiest industrialist has built an empire on import substitution. Central Africa is one of the markets he has not yet conquered. Aliko Dangote’s method has been consistent for three decades: identify a product Africa imports in volume, build capacity at a scale that changes the...