The Director-General of the National Automotive Design and Development Council (NADDC), Oluwemimo Joseph Osanipin, has estimated that the domestic automotive industry, needs $1- 5 trillion funding support to achieve the desired growth.
Osanipin in a chat with Reporters, said that the dearth of funding is slowing the pace of growth of Nigera’s auto industry, noting that NADDC’s in high-level discussion with the development banks for funding supports.
“We are working on that (funding), not only with the Development Banks; we are working on other ways that we can get funding, not even within Nigeria.
There are some people we are discussing with on any other ways we can assess funds dedicated to the auto industry., banks and partners are already buying into the funding proposals,” he said.
“For us, we are not investors; we are only trying to initiate the process. For this sector to achieve desired growth, it will require close to $1trn in funding, but it doesn’t have to be just once.
“As a starting point, we can allocate approximately $1billion. These are the kinds of things we are already discussing with our funding partners. It’s not for the council.
It’s for the players, e.g., Innoson, PAN in Kaduna, and JAC. For example, for INNOSON to move to the next level, it may need some funding in millions of dollars.
All these auto firms need this funding, and then a lot of funding is still going to come to them,” the NADDC DG said.