NADDC suspends new vehicle assembly licenses

As industry stakeholders awaits the appointment of the new Minister Of Trade and Investment, the National Automotive Design and Development Council (NADDC) has in the meantime accordingly suspended the issuance of licences to new vehicle assembly plants, except for direct investment by Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs).

The move made known to BusinessDay however stated that applicants in process would not be affected. This is to enable Council consolidate its current efforts on the vehicle assembly operations and concentrate in developing local content.

The National Automotive Industry Development Plan’s major objective is to bring back completely knocked down (CKD) automotive assembly and develop local content even as it is investing over N5 billion to establish Automotive Test Centres that will ensure that the vehicles and components meet international safety and environmental standards.

In the meantime, responses to the policy so far have exceeded the Council’s expectations. Presently, the current status of implementation of the policy is that the 14 existing assembly plants like VoN, PAN, Innoson, ANAMMCO, Leyland-Busan, NTM and Steyr have started assembling new products such as cars, SUV, buses, pick-up trucks since 2014. Nissan, VW, Hyundai, Kia, Honda cars and SUV, Shacman and MAN Trucks and Ashok-Leyland buses are now assembled locally.

As at the time of filing this report, 11 new companies, including Century Auto (Toyota), TATA, Coscharis Auto (Ford, Joylong, Dongfeng), Dana Motors (Renault), Globe Motors (Higer), Leventis (Foton-Diamler), Kewalram Chanrai (GM, Mitsubishi)have been given bona-fide manufacturing status and are on track to start assembly operations this year.

To complement the trust of the policy, sites for automotive supplier parks in excess of 400 square hectares have been acquired across Nigeria and effort is ongoing to acquire more while NADDC is evaluating tenders by global consulting firms with experience in the establishment of industrial parks.