The President of Auto Spare Parts and Machinery Dealers Association, ASPAMDA, Hon. Ngozi Emechebe has affirmed that given adequate investment and the enabling environment, Nigeria has the potential to match and even surpass China in the production of automotive and machinery spare parts.
The president who spoke at the opening ceremony of the ongoing Lagos Motor fair/Autoparts Expo at the Federal Palace Hotel, Lagos on Wednesday said Nigeria almost got to a point of assembling cars from spare parts produced locally at a time.
According to him, “At Nnewi, there were a lot of auto spare part manufacturing companies then. At a time we were about assembling vehicles before things crumbled, but thank God, Innoson Motors is doing it again”.
The ASPAMDA boss who showered encomium on President Bola Tinubu led administration for making efforts to bring back activities in the sector said: “with the way the country is going now, many companies are gradually starting production in the country again”.
Commending the organizers of the Lagos Motor Show for resilience in sustaining the expo over the years, Hon Ngozi said: Mr Ifeanyi Agwu, the organiser of this expo deserves a thumb up for bringing spare parts makers from across the world to come and showcase their products to our members and Nigerian customers”.
According to him, before the commencement of the expo some years back, ASPANMDA members use to travel to Europe, Japan, Taiwan and other parts of the world in search of companies to do business with.
“But with the spare parts expo, the various parts makers have been brought to Nigeria under one roof to meet with our members and do thriving business”, he said.
This he said has saved his members cost of flight, hotel accommodation, as well as saves time and eliminate stress arising from flying the long distance to meet with manufacturers.
He recalled that some years ago, his members use to travel to Taiwan to buy spare parts but when the business started to flourish, and the products started gaining recognition, “Taiwan shot their doors against us and raised the prices of goods which made us to turn to China”.
According to him “I pray that one day, China too should close their doors to Nigeria and force us to develop our own products”.
He disclosed that Nigeria is currently dominating African spare parts market from ASPAMDA. “We have taken over Angola, Ghana, Togo, Ivory Coast, Gambia, Senegal and many other markets and ASPAMDA is the place to visit.”
The Chinese government, he said, knows the impact of ASPAMDA to their companies. “So Nigeria should wake up. If we are serious, we will take over the world economy” he said.
Meanwhile, the ASPAMDA boss appealed to the Federal Government to look into the high taxes and duties being paid by Nigerian businessmen which he said is killing local manufacturers.
In his words, “It is cheaper to import finished products than to produce locally in Nigeria as most of the companies are relocating to neighboring countries due to unfavorable business conditions like high taxes, duties, energy and other infrastructure”.
