Nigerians spend about $1.7 billion annually to import vehicles. This consists of about 50,000 new and 150,000 used vehicles, according to Aminu Jalal, the Director-General of the National Automotive Council (NAC).

“Nigerians spend an average of N400 billion on importing passenger cars. By the time you add trucks and other vehicles, the amount Nigerians spend on imported vehicles will be running to N600 billion annually. The market is there. With this market, automotive companies will be willing to invest in the country, but the constraint is the inauspicious import duty which made the vehicles to be cheap,” he said.

Jalal noted that Nigeria’s current policy structure encourages importation and discourages production. Due to this, plans to launch Made-in-Nigeria vehicles this year was no longer viable. The plans according to him, had been initiated when import duty stood at 30%, but it has dropped to 10%.

Meanwhile, the Managing Director of KIA Motors Nigeria, Jacky Hathiramani, has said that the country has the capacity to produce 380,000 cars per year. “The auto policy has reeled in some appreciable gains, bringing to the fore local production of automobiles in the country as many new cars sold in Nigeria today are locally assembled. Consequently, we need to further strengthen the policy by reviewing it to meet the current realities. With a number of assembly plants in Nigeria today, the production capacity of these plants are over 380,000 units per annum; this is primarily the gains from the auto policy,” he added.

Anita Fatunji