Ford
Motor Corporation says it has not foreclosed the establishment of an
automobile assembly plant in Nigeria, but insists that the conditions
must be right for it to do so.
One of the conditions, according to the
firm, is for the country to have a free-trade agreement with its
neighbouring nations to ensure free movement and unhindered market for
all locally produced vehicles and other goods within the West African
region.
The President and Chief Executive
Officer, Ford Motor Company (South Africa), Mr. Jeff Nemeth, who dropped
the hint, said the American automaker would not risk having a vehicle
assembly plant in the country unless there were ready markets for its
products.
Nemeth spoke to some journalists at a forum facilitated by Coscharis Motors, one of the two representatives of Ford in Nigeria.
Although he said Ford already had vibrant
assembly plants in South Africa supplying vehicles to different parts
of Africa, including Nigeria, the firm was still studying the new auto
policy of the Federal Government and the business environment to
determine the viability of a local assembly plant.
The Federal Government had raised the
tariff on imported cars from 22 per cent to 70 per cent, as part of the
new auto policy announced in September last year for companies without
assembly plants in the country.
It allowed local manufacturers of cars to
import Completely-Knocked-Down vehicles at zero per cent and
Semi-Knocked-Down parts 1 and 2 at five per cent and 10 per cent,
respectively, as a way of encouraging automakers to start assembling
their vehicles in the country.
While Nissan and Hyundai have rolled out
the first set of locally assembled vehicles to join existing local auto
firms such as the Pan Nigeria, Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing of Nnewi
and the National Trucks Manufacturer of Kano, Kia and a number of
Chinese automakers are warming up to start assembling.
But Nemeth said Ford would not be rushed
into setting up an assembly plant in Nigeria without a fully developed
and functional support service system such as road, railway and
electricity.
He said, “You don’t want to import parts
for ever. All the support structures have to be in place such as the IT,
road, rail and power; that, I have not seen.
“What are the sales opportunities in
Nigeria right now? You are just selling about 100,000 new vehicles
annually. That is rather too small for all the industry players to share
and break even if they must assemble the vehicles in your country.”
According to him, Ford is getting about
10 per cent share of the whole auto market in Nigeria, which amounts to
10,000 vehicles out of the 100,000 units.
Nemeth said in South Africa, Ford controlled about 12 per cent of the auto market, which he gave as 650,000 vehicles yearly.
He explained that out of the 650,000
units being produced by all the auto assembly plants in that country,
about 300,000 were exported to neighbouring countries, which had
free-trade agreements with South Africa.
The Ford boss said he planned to discuss
the issue with the Minister of Industry, Trade, and Investment, Mr.
Olusegun Aganga, soon at a global business meeting in Washington D.C.
United States.
No comments:
Post a Comment