GAC auto plant targets 5,000 units rollout annually

…in partnership with Lagos govt

Local automobile assembly is gaining traction with the near completion of an assembly plant being jointly set up by the Lagos State government and CIG Motors Limited.

Babajide Sanwo-Olu, Lagos State governor, recently visited the plant on WEMPCO Road, Ogba, Ikeja, to inspect the progress of the automobile facility. He was received by Diana Chen, chairman of CIG Motors Company Limited, a Chinese investor.

The governor’s visit came 17 months after he formally sealed a Joint Venture Agreement with the automobile company for the establishment of a vehicle assembly plant in the state.

The plant, expected to be delivered by the end of the year, will have a jointly-run factory for the production of different models of brand new cars.

The establishment of the assembly plant in Lagos was part of the bilateral agreements reached by the state government and Chinese investors’ community in November 2019 during Sanwo-Olu’s business trip to China.

IBILE Holdings Limited, a Lagos State-owned corporation, is supervising the investment on behalf of the state government.

The governor inspected the fully equipped assembly halls already constructed in the assembly yard. The plant is expected to produce 5,000 units of new vehicles when it becomes operational.

Other ancillary facilities already in place in the yard include wheel balancing chamber, spraying booths, maintenance hall, noise testing chambers, sprinkling arena to test for roof leakage, staff lounge and auto parts warehouse.

“This is one of the things we promised Lagosians. Apart from our relationship with CIG Motors, there is a partnership in which we are setting up a vehicle assembly plant. This is becoming a reality, as the site is live with structures and assembly equipment. The place has been well prepared for the production of vehicles. We initially agreed it would be SKD (Semi Knocked Down) but now the facility has moved to CKD (Completely Knocked Down),” Sanwo-Olu said.

“We are hoping that their first plan is to have a production capacity of 5,000 vehicles, after which it will be pushed to 10,000 vehicles per year. We are happy with the level of work at the site and the commitment of our partner to this project. The plan is that we want to stop buying fully built vehicles from abroad; we want to be able to have an assembly line where we can employ our citizens in an automobile production chain.”

The governor said the automobile assembly plant would create employment opportunities for local skilled workers, as 95 percent of the workforce would be sourced locally.

Some of the parts used in the assembly plant would be sourced locally, including air conditioning system, valves, ball joints, bolts and nuts, and batteries.

Sanwo-Olu also visited the site of the Industrial Leather Hub being constructed by the state government in Matori Industrial Area, Mushin.