The United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) has said that the implementation of the new automotive policy in Nigeria would create more direct and indirect jobs across different sectors of the economy.
UNIDO’s Representative and Director, Regional Office for Nigeria, Dr. Patrick Kormawa, who stated this at the stakeholders’ forum held in Lagos, said that the automotive industry in Nigeria currently employs about 2,500 people. But the implementation of the new automotive policy, Kormawa noted, will generate more than 700,000 direct and indirect jobs.
Kormawa said the policy would help create jobs in different clusters in the country and across the entire automotive value chain.
“It will also fast-track the growth and development of other intervening industries such as automotive spare parts, auto servicing, steel industry, rubber, petrochemicals and plastic industries, among others,” he said.
He said that to industrialise the country, diversify the economy, create jobs and generate wealth for the people, government must put in place investment-friendly policies that would attract local and foreign investments and brands from different parts of the world into the critical sectors of the Nigerian economy.
The UNIDO boss said that for the country to make significant progress in the automotive sector government should encourage any company that wants to assemble cars in the country to do so.
He added: “This will help many local artisans to move from the formal to the informal sectors of the economy. This will further aid wealth creation and enable the growth of small businesses to contribute positively to national development.”
He called on the Federal Government to provide a conducive atmosphere to attract and grow local and foreign direct investments across all sectors of the Nigerian economy.
He said if this is done, it would create business opportunities for Nigerians, grow the economy and contribute to government’s tax revenue.
Speaking during the event, the Director-General of the National Automobile Council, Aminu Jalal, said the Nigerian automotive industry has had its fair share of crisis that dates back to the 1980s.
Despite the crisis in the industry, he said the Federal Government had continued to make efforts to revitalise the industry.