Buhari's US Visit: Re-vitation Of The Automobile Industry.

The Counsellor for Economic Affairs, United States Embassy in Nigeria, Mr. Alan Tousignant, has said that the recent official visit of President Muhammadu Buhari to the
United States has rekindled the interest of its investors in Nigeria’s automotive industry.
He said during a visit to the National Automotive Council last week that since Buhari concluded the visit, there had been quite a lot of business enquiries from potential American investors related directly to the Nigerian auto industry.
He said that his visit to NAC headquarters was to make enquiries on the Nigerian Automotive Industry Development Plan (NAIDP) with a view to informing the investment decision of American government and its business community.
We want “to know more about applicable tariff structure, incentives, availability of skilled personnel, current total installed capacity, local value addition, industrial clusters and infrastructures, applicable safety standards, annual national vehicle demand, export potentials to other countries, amongst others,” he said.
Speaking, Director General, National Automotive Council, Mr. Aminu Jalal, said he was excited by the keen interest shown by American companies and businessmen in the Nigerian auto Industry.
He pointed out that already, two American auto giants, Ford Motors and General Motors, had confirmed their interest to start vehicle assembly operations in Nigeria early next year.
He explained that Nigeria is the largest economy in Africa with a very huge market for automobiles, saying the auto industry policy is intended to transform Nigeria into a major vehicle manufacturing hub for leveraging on Nigeria’s abundant trainable labour force and material resources especially petrochemical-based.
Jalal added that with a population of over 170 million, Nigeria cannot continue to run an import dependent economy