The Nigerian government is to establish automotive industrial parks in three states to promote local production of vehicles, Jelani Aliyu, the Director General, National Automotive Design and Development Council has said.
Mr Aliyu made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Abuja.
According to him, the parks will be sited in Nnewi in Anambra State, home to Innoson Motors, the first indigenous motor manufacturing firm in Nigeria, Ede in Osun State and Kaduna.
He said the programme is part of the National Automotive Industry Development Plan, aimed at promoting local production of vehicles.
“We are building three automotive industrial parks that will be comprehensive facilities where the necessary infrastructure will be provided and investors can easily come in and play,” he said.
“As the Federal Government is promoting local production of vehicles, key to that is creating the necessary environment, and we have done that with the automotive policy.
We are working on making it easier and more advantageous to produce vehicles locally because we believe the difference must be created between vehicles built elsewhere and those built in Nigeria.
“When you build a vehicle in Nigeria, you are giving our youths jobs, empowering Nigerians and creating better life.
“But when you bring in a fully built vehicle, you are taking resources outside Nigeria and that is not adding much value to us our economy,” he said.
Mr Aliyu said the automotive policy stipulates that cars assembled in Nigeria have zero per cent tariff for Completely Knocked Down (CKD) kits and not more than 10 per cent tariff for a semi-knocked-down (SKD) kits.
He said the government was also working on a 10-year tax holiday for investors in the automotive industry.
The NADDC boss said that work was also at concluding stage in the building of automobile testing centres to ensure global standard compliant in the sector
We have finished the construction of automotive testing facilities in Lagos, Enugu, and Zaria and should be up and running this year.
“Any spare part or component that is brought or made in Nigeria must meet minimum global standard otherwise it will be deemed illegal and we won’t allow it to be sold in the Nigeria market.
“All these are steps the Federal Government is taking to ensure that the necessary environment is created in Nigeria for investors.
“We are to not to go out there to produce those vehicles but we will work closely with investors in the private sector to ensure they get the necessary support,” Mr Aliyu said.
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