Osinbajo meets Innoson Group CEO, Chinese investors, says ‘manufacturing is a primary objective of the Buhari administration’

To ensure a viable country and productive economy, the Muhammadu Buhari administration will continue to actively pursue a plan for massive manufacturing and production of goods in the country as much as possible.
In that effort, the Federal Government will seek alliance with business interests to facilitate the plan, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo disclosed on Monday, adding that “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 Vice President spoke at a meeting in the Presidential Villa, Abuja with a delegation from the Innoson Group and some Chinese business interests including Shangdong Broadcasting Group led by Chief Innocent Chukwuma, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Innoson Group.
He explained that it is 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 is being addressed as a “strategic collaboration.”
In this regard, Innoson Group is collaborating with three Chinese firms – Shangdong Broadcasting Group, Shangdong Cable Interactive Services and Inspur Group.
According to Chukwuma, the Chinese firms have decided to invest about $1 billion in the Nigerian economy within 24 months.
The initiative, the VP said “is bound to yield very good fruits and do very well,” adding also that the timing is right “as we are at a point that we must engage technological solutions in our development plans.”
Osinbajo then 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, believing that the Chinese firms must have taken that into consideration as well.
Earlier, Chukwuma detailed the investments intended by the Chinese firms to include:
*a credit facility of $300m for local production and supply of 5-8 million Set-Top Boxes for the Digital Switch-Over in broadcasting in the country to meet a target date of June, 2017.
*an investment of $100m to establish technology-based Direct-To-Home Digital Bing Television Stations.
*a further investment of $600m for Smart City CCTV camera and IT solutions for taxation, both using Cloud Computing, and E-Education IT solutions with big data centers 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 have been concluded between our two parties.”
Responding, the Vice President declared: “We are looking forward to working with you in the next few months to realise the plans that you have laid out.”
The Deputy Minister of the Communist Party in Shandong Province and Chairman of the Shandong Broadcasting Group, Mr Liu Baoju, and Mr. Huang Gang, Senior Vice President of Inspur Group were among dignitaries at the meeting.