Vice President Yemi
Osinbajo has said on Monday that the Buhari administration would continue to actively pursue a plan for the massive manufacturing and production of goods in the country.
He gave the assurance while receiving a delegation of Chinese investors partnering with Innoson group to invest one billion dollars in the country at the Presidential Villa, Monday.
Osinbajo said the Federal Government would collaborate with business interests who could facilitate the plan.
“Manufacturing in Nigeria is a primary objective of this government; it is a work we intend to do in the next few years to manufacture and produce in Nigeria as much as we can,” the VP stated.
He explained it was because of the administration’s commitment to spur manufacturing and local production in the country that the initiative of Innoson Group to work with Chinese partners was being addressed as a “strategic collaboration.”
Osinbajo hailed the partnership between Innoson and the three Chinese companies: Shangdong Broadcasting Group; Shangdong Cable Interactive Services and Inspur Group.
The initiative, the VP said, “is bound to yield very good fruits and do very well,” adding that the timing was right “as we are at a point that we must engage technological solutions in our development plans”.
Prof. Osinbajo explained the importance of competition and competitive pricing in such an effort.
“In all we try to do, we believe there must be competition, competitive prices and plans,” the Vice President noted, adding the Chinese firms must have taken that into consideration as well.
“We are looking forward to working with you in the next few months to realise the plans that you have laid out,” Osinbajo added.
According to Chief Chukwuma, the Chinese firms have decided to invest the amount in the Nigerian economy within the next 12 to 24 months.
Chukwuma gave the investments intended by the Chinese firms to include a credit facility of 300m dollars for local production and supply of five million to eight million Set-Top Boxes.
The boxes are to enable the country to meet the Digital Switch-Over target of June 2017 in broadcasting in the country.
He announced an investment of 100m dollars to establish technology-based Direct-To-Home Digital Bing Television Stations.
He also announced a further investment of 600m dollars for Smart City CCTV camera and IT solutions for taxation, both using Cloud Computing, and E-Education IT solutions with big data centres in all federal universities and polytechnics in the country.
According to the Chairman of Innoson Group, “every plan to make a success of all these projects has been concluded between our two parties.”
Shangdong Cable Interactive Services is regarded as leading TV operators, and Inspur Group said to be China’s foremost leader in Cloud Computing solution suppliers and IT service provider.
The Deputy Minister of the Communist Party in Shandong Province and Chairman, Shandong Broadcasting Group, Mr Liu Baoju, and Mr Huang Gang, Senior Vice President of Inspur Group, were among the business delegation.