SAN FRANCISCO, June 02, (THEWILL) – The National Automotive Design and Development Council (NADDC) says it has received proposals from Chinese investors and five South African firms with strong interests to invest in the manufacturing of automobile components in Nigeria.
This was disclosed by Aminu Jalal, Director-General, NADDC, on Thursday, in Abuja, as he declared that the council’s focus had shifted to local content development with a target of 40 percent local content development in the automotive sector within the next five years.
“The auto policy has two major objectives: to bring back automotive assembly operations and to develop local content. We have achieved the first objective,” he said.
“Emphasis has now shifted to local content development aimed at developing the local capacity to produce automotive components needed by assembly plants using available local human and material resources.
“Assembly operations alone account for about 15 to 20 percent of the cost of the vehicle, and, when you add local content you now increase the value added. We are hoping that within the next five years, we will reach value addition of about 30 to 40 percent.
“Local content development in the automotive sector comes with huge requirements both on the part of the suppliers and the assembly plants.
“The suppliers require the local assembly plants to attain certain production level that is enough to support their business before they will come in.
“The assembly plants, on their part, want component supply at competitive cost, in required quality and quantity, and at the required delivery times.
“The component suppliers also need to be able to upgrade their products to keep up with the pace in the industry, which you know is very fast.”
Story by David Oputah
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