 There was a new clause in Nigeria's finance bill for 2021 that will drive down import duties on foreign vehicles from 35% to 5%. The vice-ive opinion from investors and industry players have met the policy as it could potentially limit the demand for locally produced vehicles. At the Nigerian Economic Summit Group Conference, Chidi Ageri, the CEO of GIG Group, that is a parent company of GIG Mobility and Logistics, voiced his concerns on how the policy affects investors who have put billions of naira into the local production of vehicles. According to the vice-president, Prof. Yami Oshibaju, owing to Nigeria's annual vehicle demand of 720,000, the local production which currently stands at 14,000 barely meets the need. We will be looking at Nigeria's auto assembly capacity on the show today. Welcome to Business Insight and Plus TV Africa. I am Justin Acadone. Now international brands like Nissan and Hyundai have established many assembly plants and in the genius brand hub in making significant strides in building trust, Majed Motocompany raised $9 million in research capital to build electric vehicles. Despite this, there appears to be an increase in importation of vehicles. In 2019, Nigeria imported an estimated 1.3 million vehicles, 56 percent more than 734,000 in 2017. We are now being joined by the CEO of GIG Motor Company, Wemimo, or Sonic Me, to look at the capacity of Nigeria's auto assembly in this space. Thanks for joining us on Business Insight and Plus TV Africa. Oh, you're welcome. Yeah. Wemimo, it is really alarming that we have capacity to maybe generate our assembly cars in Nigeria, but with all of this in reality, we're still importing so much. Is it a thing that we don't really have enough to meet the demands for the Nigerian market or that the average Nigerian does not necessarily believe in Nigerian vehicles? Okay. Let me start with the capacity. As of today, we have about 62 local assemblers that assemble vehicle here in Nigeria. We have a lot of them, and we have those that assemble international brands, and we have like two or three that assemble local brands. When I mean local brands, the brands that are not international, they are only manufacturer here in Nigeria. We have two of them, and we have the capacity to assemble about 530,000 vehicle annually. Out of these 62 assemblers, we have 33 of them registered with Buru or Public Procurement. We have the capacity, given all the necessary infrastructure, to assemble about 500,000 annually. Again, the record shows that the import is every year, especially for about 2020, 2021. The import record shows that we have about over 600,000 every year that people import. The gap is still there that we need to bridge. But again, for us to be able to bridge that gap, we need government. We need everybody. We need government. If you look at the six elements of auto policy, I will just pick one out of the six elements, and that is investment promotion. Under that investment promotion, part of the things that they need to do under the investment promotion is to make it easy for people to register, for people to come in, and part of it is, for example, if you want to renew your license, you do that annually. You can know what it takes. For us, we are based in Lagos. For us to renew that our license, we have to be sending our staff to different offices in Abuja. This can be done maybe once in three years. Then part of the things you need to do is policy consistent. That is under investment promotion. Policy consistent. How consistent are our policies? In your intro, you mentioned that government reduced the import duty. 35% to 5%. Okay. Yes. If you look at that one, can we call that one policy consistent? Somersault. Yes, it's a lot of somersaults. You cannot have policy somersaults and encourage investment. We have invested a lot into this industry. We have a lot of investment, even still coming in. But again, we need to encourage those investors to be able to put their money in. We want to put money if there are these policy somersaults. We know that if we play it where a lot can be done. I will give you statistics. In 2020, the total amount, our budget expenditure was about 10.5, 10.6 billion. The amount Nigerian that is recorded spent on imported vehicles was 1.1 trillion. We can see from 10.5 trillion total expenditure of the budget of the government, we are spending about 10% on importation of vehicles. We can do a lot with this money. We can do a lot on the efforts that are going outside the country. We can conserve our foreign reserve. We can create more jobs. A lot can be done. Part of the objective of NADDC, that is the objective of auto policy, is to create jobs and then improve the value chain. This value chain can be improved through local content development and scale acquisition. Let me bring you back to what you said. You said there are about 530,000 vehicles actually done here. The capacity. The capacity. That's annually. You talked about the need or necessary infrastructure that government needs to do. In as much as there have been policies so and so in the reduction of import rates from 35 to 5%, what more do you think the government can do in terms of infrastructure to make the environment sustainable for local assembly plans to thrive? Thank you. I mentioned about this element of the auto policy. One of the elements is industrial infrastructure. The NADDC has planned to have industrial park, one in Kaduna, one somewhere in Nassau and another one in Anambra. This industrial park has to provide basic infrastructure so that when you want to go into assembly, you just come with your equipment and plug in. If you have this one there, it eliminates a lot of things like looking for land, trying to do a lot. In Nigeria, you think it's easy to start a business, to acquire your land, to get the land registered, to get your building registered, patrol a lot of assessment, make a lot of payment, it takes a lot of effort and money. If you have this industrial park there, it's going to help a lot. A basic infrastructure will have been provided by government in those industrial parks. Then, number two, ski acquisition. We need to do something about that. We really need to do something about that and government has to help also. I know that NADDC are doing something about developing curriculum for some universities and then developing a program that will take care of this, but government can still do more. Again, patronage, that is the most important thing. Patronage as in patronage by Nigerians. Patronage by governments and by Nigerians. Part of what we have in that auto policy is what is called an automotive credit scheme. That's a vehicle automotive credit scheme. Supposed to encourage, provide funds for Nigerians to buy local assembly vehicles, but this is not there. It's still on business in Saitan, on plus TV Africa. We still have a women more sonically in the house. We'll take a quick break and we'll come back and talk about electric vehicles, which is actually like the future of an auto in the world. Let's see what Nigeria has done, what capacity we have, and then what are the prospect and maybe challenges in the moment. Do join us again. Welcome back. It's still business in Saitan plus TV Africa. We still have women more sonically at the CEO of JTEM company Motors and we're looking at the future of auto capacity in Nigeria. How have we gone? What are we doing well? And what are the prospects? Maybe threat opportunities are bound in the sector. And when we were just before we went on the break, we're talking about an electronic vehicle. The world is seemingly moving in that direction. What are we doing in that light in Nigeria? I understand that there has been an EV boss cargo in Nigeria. So what are the prospects really knowing that we have challenges of power generation and all of that? Is this something that we can see on every street, on every road in the next five years in Nigeria? The next five years. Right? We say yes and no. Why yes and no? Yeah. But the future is already here with us. How so? Because if we keep on looking at oh, it's going to be 10 years time, 20 years time because some developed country, some have targets of 2035, 2040, 2050 when they are going to be having at least 90% of their vehicle to be EV. So if you are looking at that and we refuse to start planning today, you'll just realize that 30 years time is already by the corner. So because of that, we decided, like for example, I know that Jet Motor Company has released. Okay. You're going to make a motion for that. Let's not talk about what Jet has released. Okay. I know a lot of vehicles, a lot of assemblers have released, at least two assemblers have released electric vehicles into Nigeria market. I know a particular one that already Nigeria market and they are doing well. But again, there are a lot of, we all know the obvious challenge we have. Yes, because my guys are still battling with power. Do we, I'm sure it has to be powered and daily, recharged and all that. Do we have the capacity for all of that? Judging by the fact that we've not been able to meet the power demands for citizens here in Nigeria? In any way you look at it. I see this is an internal combustion engine that uses petrol or diesel. Or you look at EV, we are having challenges. Today, it's easier for you to charge your vehicle than to buy a liter of petrol. Today, it's far, far cheaper for you to charge your vehicle than to buy a liter of diesel. That's AGO. I learned that AGO said, yes, they were selling for over 500 Naira per liter. So when you put that one to perspective, you know that the challenges we are facing, either with petrol, with diesel, is almost the same thing you are going to face and with EV. But EV is far, far better. Why I say it's better is this. We only need to put our power issue, right? Immediately we solve that one. That's the future, that we have no, there's no two way about it. That's the future. If you look at an internal combustion engine and you look at the parts that form the system, you know, when you say system is different, different parts that work, that make a vehicle to move, then you look at electric vehicle. The electric vehicle has like about 10 to 12 percent of the parts that make a motor vehicle, they make an ICE vehicle. And then you could see that with electric vehicle, the monthly or those one in commercial, two to week servicing by diesel, by engine oil, change your plug, you don't need to do that. The maintenance cost alone is enough attraction for you to go EV. And why people are saying power, power, power? But again, where we are, where in this studio, where are you saying power? This means the same way we are saying there is no power. People are saying power every day in their home, in their offices, in their business. And very cutthroat prices. Yes, you can say at cutthroat prices, but again, at that cutthroat price is too far, far cheaper to maintain than to use ICE, ICE vehicle. Okay, let's leave that as we round off on this particular discourse. Now let's talk about the contribution of the automobile sector to the country. How well is it really doing as regards to what it is adding to the GDP in Nigeria? Yeah, the auto, as I said initially, we have the capacity, we have about 62 companies already registered assembler and the employer as that according to Minister of Industry, over 4,000 employees are already working in auto assemblers, assembly companies in Nigeria. So that contribution is, and gradually we can grow that one in time of employment, in time of skill acquisition, and in time of value change that we are talking about. The value change is we have some plastic we use in vehicles. We have some electrical things that they can do, the welding, all this one can be done locally. That's why we say development of local content and when you look at the local content we can do here in Nigeria, we can do it to the extent that at least 50% of what is taken to assemble a vehicle or manufacture a vehicle can be done locally. And if we can do the think of what we are going to conserve, I mentioned the other time that about 10% of our annual budget expenditure also go to what the people spend on importing a vehicle is about 10% of our annual budgeted expenditure. So if that is the case, think of what we are going to conserve and then I'm sure it's a huge contribution to the economy. Alright, thank you so much. We indeed, Nigeria really has huge opportunities and if we did the right thing, I'm sure we will be blossoming in this particular sector. We must say a very big thank you to you, Wemimo for joining us on the show today. Thank you for having me. Alright, Wemimo Osonicme is the CEO of JETM Company Motors and he has done justice to the issue and of course we just hope that government will do the right thing so Nigerians can begin to smile and enjoy all the profits and all of the benefits. And just before we go, government at all levels have emerged to give more support to the event planning and entertainment industry so it can thrive effectively. Now the convener of the exceptional Alaga Conference 3.0, Dr. Abyeola Olaol Uluwa Ketong, said this at the Fed annual conference to draw the attention of the strengths, threats and opportunities abound in the sector. Details in this package, I'll see you again next time. I am Justin Akadouni and many thanks for watching. Entrepreneurship takes various forms in a country like Nigeria where unemployment is an ever-present issue. For some men and women, they have taken to event comparing as way as to add values to the society themselves and traditional ceremonies. With COVID-19 and the need to tackle the inherent challenges, this set of entrepreneurs have built their capacity ahead of the future. Dr. Abyeola Olaol Uluwa Ketong said the theme of the conference tagged process growth and intentionality was informed on the need for stakeholders to scale up after reinvesting themselves post COVID-19. Other speakers have the need for event planners not to compromise on their standards. What we just asked for is that they should keep supporting us, they should keep believing in us, they should keep giving us the empowerment that they think, whatever they think they can do to assist the industry more and we'll be so glad to have them come over to assist us. Last year, post COVID, we had to say we are scaling up. The first year we had it as the exceptional Alaga. The second year we have it as reinvention in the industry. So now you have known yourself as an exceptional Alaga. You have reinvented. The next thing is for you to scale up. But you have to have a process. When you follow your process, there will be growth when you are intentional about that process. Somebody was asking me, why should I pay Ketron service charge? I said that that's where they make their money to run their business. It's not the cost of your food. It's the money they make to run their business. You understand? So it comes from understanding, everybody must collaborate. I need to understand what a decorator does. I need to understand how a decorator prices. Before I go to my clients, I need to understand how a Ketron prices. You understand me? So that when I go to my clients to tell them that this is the cost of the food. I'm saying it with full conviction. Yes, this is a very good initiative. Coming together, robbing minds together and sharing experiences will make people understand their food even in the business. So I think it's a very good initiative. The recent growth of Festival Yverdes and the industry globally means that the management should be comprehensively planned.