INNOSON’S MADE-IN-NIGERIA CARS EMERGE Chairman of Innoson Group, Dr Innocent Chukwuma, is one of the investors that took advantage of the new vigour introduced to the automobile industry in Nigeria by the Jonathan government. The company last year made history, becoming the first indigenous car manufacturer in the country with the official unveiling of 500 made-in-Nigeria cars built at its Nnewi, Anambra State, plant. Chukwuma insists that his brand of cars, which conform to international standards, would lower car prices in the country like he did when he started to manufacture mo¬torcyles some years back. He also promised to use his auto company to boost the Nigerian economy as well as generate employment. “I started assembling business with mo¬torcycle spare parts and later moved to motorcycle assembling. Later I moved again from motorcycle manufacturing to auto manufacturing. I passed through these stages before I started to manufacture ve¬hicles in 2010, but the factory was built in 2007 at Nnewi. We are also into tyre manufacture with our factory in Enugu. We did not start all these lines of production in one day; we take them one after another. For example, we are manufacturing some of the vehicle components here while we only import the ones we cannot produce here. “We started manufacturing buses, but later added Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs), pick-up vans, trucks and now cars, which we will commission today. We started to manufacture buses first because of its high demand in the country. But I knew from the beginning that we will produce all brands of vehicles and that we have achieved now,” Chukwuma stated. These achievements of the Jonathan government are not the kinds that can be contrived or made up because these are factories within the country. All the people need to do is to take a trip to Anambra State, Enugu State, Lagos State among others to see if these factories are actually there, up and running. Gone are the days when politicians bamboozle people with claims of performance that are unverifiable. These days with Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp among many other communication platforms, people do not even need to travel to verify these achievements. Just get in touch with a friend or relative living in the places where these investments are, get them to take photographs with their mobile phones and through any of the communication platforms, the facts are out in the open. Also these vehicles are out in the streets plying Nigerian roads and no Nigerian government since the early 1980s was ever able to achieve this feat until Jonathan took the saddle. Other Industrial Investments Flow In Government has also been making effort to ensure that all these growth translate into development in the form of employment for the teeming unemployed in the country. Some tangible investment flow into the country whose economy has become more purposeful and efficient include: General Electric’s $1billion Investment Nigeria, last year, recorded a milestone in its investment drive as the federal government and General Electric Company of the United States sealed a $1bn (N158bn) investment deal on the establishment of a new manufacturing and assembly facility in Calabar. Aganga, signed the Memorandum of Understanding on behalf of the Federal Government while the Global Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of GE, Mr. Jeff Immelt, led other top executives to sign on behalf of the company. The new investment also takes care of additional investment in the service workshops in Port Harcourt and Onne and is at the point of execution, according to Immelt. The deal, which comprises $250million capital expenditure and over $800 million incremental spending on local sourcing of goods and services, is expected to create 2,300 jobs and make Nigeria the regional hub for GE’s manufacturing service and innovation in Africa. It will also support the company’s power generation, oil and gas production and exploration
Posted on: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 09:50:36 +0000
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