The National Automotive Design and Development Council on Tuesday said that it had entered into a partnership with three Deposit Money Banks to finance its vehicle financing scheme.
The Director-General, NADDC, Jelani Aliyu, who said this in an interview with journalists, added that the scheme would begin in May.
The vehicle scheme is being implemented under the National Automotive Industrial Development Plan.
The plan which contains a number of policy measures needed to revitalize the industry for job creation, local value addition, and technology acquisition has six components.
They are standards, industrial infrastructure, local content development, skills development, investment promotion and market development.
Speaking at the event, Jelani said that the implementation of the vehicle finance scheme would commence within the next one month.
He said that the agency had reached an understanding with the three banks that the loans would be given to eligible Nigerians after they must have deposited 10 per cent of the cost of the vehicle.
The NADDC DG said that the loans would be provided by the banks to Nigerians at a single digit interest rate of eight per cent.
He said, โWe are doing market development and as you are aware, in a number of different countries, when you buy a vehicle, you have to put down 10 or 15 per cent and you drive home with the vehicle for a number of years.
โBut that is technically not available in Nigeria. Where you do have vehicle financing is in the high-interest rate of 20 per cent or 28 per cent.
โSo what we doing is that we are already talking to a number of local banks and we are talking with three banks and we will soon be rolling out what we call the automotive vehicle finance where these vehicles that are made in Nigeria would be financed.
โSo in about a month and a half, we are working to roll out the vehicle finance scheme so that Nigerians can just put down maybe ten per cent or less and drive off with the vehicles and pay over a number of years at just six per cent to eight per cent as opposed to 28 per cent.โ
The DG said that the government was also to encourage auto manufacturers to continue to increase the level of their investments in the country.
He said that the government was currently building three automotive parks in Nnewi (Anambra) Osogbo (Osun) and Kaduna as part of measures to boost investment in the sector.
He said one of the purposes the policy was formulated was to stimulate the economy through industrialisation, adding that this was the only viable way to create sustainable jobs for the unemployed youth.
The automotive policy, he noted, would restrict the inflow of used vehicles into the country by providing the protective and fiscal incentives in support of local production.
This, he noted, would assist to reverse the current trend in which 400,000 used vehicles, worth an estimated $8bn were imported into Nigeria annually.
