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Nigeria To Begin Production Of Local Vehicles Soon.
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Nigeria aims to achieve full vehicle production within 10 years, leveraging abundant resources and skilled workforce.
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Proposed policy includes a five-year tax holiday to incentivize local vehicle assembly and promote backward integration.
EKO HOT BLOG reports that the Minister of Industry, Trade, and Investment, Doris Uzoka-Anite, has revealed plans to elevate Nigeria as a significant contender in the vehicle manufacturing sector.
Speaking on Friday during the launch of the Nigeria Automotive Industry Development Plan, attended by stakeholders from both private and public sectors, she emphasized the country’s potential to become a prominent vehicle manufacturer within the next decade.
Uzoka-Anite highlighted Nigeria’s ample raw materials, skilled workforce, and market opportunities as key factors drivi
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ng this initiative. She emphasized that the development plan aims to enable Nigeria to produce various vehicles, including motorcycles, tricycles, sedans, and heavy-duty trucks.
“With this plan, we should see Nigeria fully producing its own vehicles within 10 years. Our goal is to reduce the cost of purchasing a vehicle for the average Nigerian.”
On his part, the Director-General of the National Automotive Design and Development Council, Joseph Osanipin stated that the policy proposed to help actualise the plan was a five-year tax holiday for assemblers of vehicles in Nigeria.
He said, “Through such fiscal initiatives, there is a deliberate focus on backward integration and component production.”
Members of the Automotive Industry Development Plan implementation committee are drawn from the Ministries of Finance, Transport, and Environment as well as Industry, Trade and Investment.
It also comprises the Nigeria Customs Service, the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, and the Standards Organisation of Nigeria.
Last year, Nigeria’s vehicle assembling industry, estimated to be worth around N302bn, tanked to a new low due to increasing production costs and weakened demand for locally assembled automobiles.
According to the Manufacturers CEOs Confidence Index, activities of motor vehicles and miscellaneous assembly deteriorated further below the benchmark (50 points) from 48.6 to 46.7 points.
For example, in the second quarter of 2023, players in the sector saw production and distribution costs soar by 17.3 per cent, while cost of shipments increased by 14.7 per cent.
Capacity utilisation in the sector dropped by 5.6 per cent, forcing local assemblers to cut their workforce by 5.7 per cent during the period.
Prior to 2014, when a policy for the automobile industry was released, giving license for automobile dealerships in Nigeria, the importation of used cars had threatened to wipe up the gains of partnerships forged by the Nigerian governments with foreign car manufacturers in the 1970s
The Federal Government’s Automotive Policy of 2014 is geared towards providing a framework that would support automobile companies to boost local content and establish a vehicle financing scheme that would provide funds for citizens to buy new cars.
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However, despite the policy, the government’s refusal to patronise locally manufactured vehicles, coupled with poor regulations, has constituted an albatross on the neck of the industry.
Currently, Nigeria produces less than 10 per cent of the vehicles used in the country.
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