Nigeria missing among Africa’s automakers accessing Afrexim $1bn – AfCFTA

Nigeria missing among Africa’s automakers accessing Afrexim $1bn – AfCFTA

Nigeria is not among recognised countries producing vehicles for Africa, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) has said.
Nigeria is therefore missing the benefit of accessing from Afrexim’s $1bn facility meant for automakers in Africa.
Secretary General of AfCFTA, Wamkele Mene, stated this on Tuesday at the Zenith Bank’s international trade seminar, non-oil export in Lagos.
He expressed regret that Nigeria is not one of the African countries currently qualified to access the $1b fund.

Three countries currently benefiting from the fund are South Africa, Egypt and Morocco.
“Our continent produces 900,000 units of passenger vehicles per year between South Africa, Egypt and Morocco and we are 17 per cent of the global population” he stated.
According to him, Nigeria now has a new opportunity to joint the league of recognised automakers with estimated five million vehicles needed in Africa by 2035
Mene said there was a need for Nigeria to take the initiative of diversifying into automobile production to meet the vast gap of Africa’s population.

He said auto sector offers an opportunity to accelerate the diversification of Africa’s economy.

He said, “We have identified a number of priority sectors, which we believe in our studies indicate that these priority sectors will enable the diversification that we all want to see.
“I mentioned the pharmaceutical sector, agriculture and agro-processing, transport and logistics, and the auto sector.
“In the auto sector again, we have an opportunity to accelerate the diversification of Africa’s economy.”

Mene also said, “By the year 2035, our estimates indicate that in order for us to meet domestic demand in Africa we have to produce five million units of vehicles per year.
“That means that for Nigeria, there is an opportunity to include the auto sector in your strategy if it is not there already as your strategy for diversification for production of vehicles, creating jobs driving industrialisation. (This is) because we know that the demand for the auto sector, Africans auto sector is not going to be met by Egypt, Morocco, South Africa.
“We have to have more countries that are producing vehicles for the African continent and creating jobs and innovation and driving industrialisation.”
He recommended that the auto sector be closely looked, noting, “from every unit of investment on the assembly line to produce a vehicle, there are four jobs that are created in the components manufacturing sector, whether it is lithium battery, manufacturing or any other kind of a component.
“So, as we talk about diversification value addition, let us consider the auto sector as one of the enablers for the diversification that we all want to see.
“I am very happy that our development financing institutions have stepped up as Afrexim has provided the facility $1 billion for any country that wishes to start producing vehicles for trade under the AfCFTA.”
The highpoint of the event was the Zenith Bank signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with AfCFTA to create an Intra-Africa trade portal known as the SMARTAfCFTA. This is a single portal for trade information for the continent.
The bank will fund the portal for trade information in Africa with one million dollars.
The Group Managing Director Zenith Bank, Ebenezer Onyeagwu, speaking on the MoU signed with AfCFTA said it would bring prosperity to the African continent and the portal to be created by Zenith Bank would foster intra-Africa trade.
“We expect that the implementation of this agenda will change the fortune of not just Nigeria but the whole of Africa.”
He added, “With the development of this portal, one of the capabilities we are going to build into is that you can sit in every part of Africa and market your products and services.
“You can sit in every part of Africa and identify whatever products and services you require that are in Africa.”