AUTO POLICY:

Reaffirms April Date For Made-in-Nigeria Car
The National Automotive Council (NAC) said it has disbursed more than N11billion to 33 local automobile companies to boost the production of affordable made-in-Nigeria vehicles.
The Director General of NAC, Mr Aminu Jalal said this at a news conference in Abuja.
He said that the first set of locally made vehicles would start hitting the country’s automobile market by the end of April.

Reaffirms April Date For Made-in-Nigeria Car
The National Automotive Council (NAC) said it has disbursed more than N11billion to 33 local automobile companies to boost the production of affordable made-in-Nigeria vehicles.
The Director General of NAC, Mr Aminu Jalal said this at a news conference in Abuja.
He said that the first set of locally made vehicles would start hitting the country’s automobile market by the end of April.
He said that the exiting assembly plants in the country are located in Lagos, Kaduna, Kano, Nnewi, Bauchi, Enugu and Osogbo.
Jalal said that out of the 33 benefitting companies, only three were involved in vehicle assembly operations, while the rest were local content manufacturers.
According to him, local content development in vehicle manufacturing, which forms the thrust of the new automotive policy, will not be possible without local assembly plants.
Jalal said the policy was geared towards discouraging the importation of vehicles into the country through the introduction of high tariff on imported vehicles.
This is expected to compel importers, who have amassed a fortune selling foreign-made vehicles, to integrate backwards and invest in the development of the local auto industry.
Jalal admitted that since the announcement of the policy, the Federal Government had come under intense pressure from importers of manufactured vehicles, who believe that the country lacks the capacity to produce brand new vehicles.
The pressure, according to him, has made the government to move the implementation of the new tariff on imported cars to July 1.
“When the policy came in, the tariff was to commence in January this year, but we received a lot of complaints from importers that they were not prepared for its take-off. So, the old tariff will last till July 1,” the NAC boss said.
He said that 15 foreign automobile companies were already setting up vehicle assembly plants in different parts of the country and would begin full operations before November.
Jalal said that NAC was encouraging local production of new automobiles backed by a vehicle financing scheme to make them affordable to low income earners in the country.
He stated that already South Korean auto giant, Hyundai had expressed its intention to locally produce new vehicles that would sell for below N1.7 million.
“We encourage assembly plants to produce vehicles that people can afford; our aim is to see that within a short while, people will stop buying fairly used or ‘Tokunbo’ vehicles.
“We are not going to force people, but we will make new locally made vehicles attractive backed by affordable vehicle finance scheme.
“Already, Hyundai has told us it will produce new vehicles that will sell for N1.7 million, which I think is even below the cost of most ‘Tokunbo’vehicles.
“I am sure that a vehicle that will sell for between N1.7 million and N2.5 million, backed by a vehicle finance scheme that will spread payment between three and four years, will be affordable for Nigerians,’’ he said.
Jalal said that NAC was working with the Standard Organisation of Nigeria to enforce that locally made vehicles were of international standard.
He said that the council would also establish test centres in Lagos, Abuja and Port-Harcourt, where locally made vehicles and imported vehicle parts would be taken for quality test.