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Against the tide of economic recession, Nigeria’s foremost heavy duty vehicle manufacturing company, ANAMMCO Limited, has resumed full production in Enugu, where it is assembling a range of Shacman trucks for the Nigerian roads.
The cheery news has set off a wave of excitement in the automotive industry prompting analysts to consider the upsurge in production activities a boost to the automotive policy {formally called the Nigerian Automotive Industry Development Plan (NAIDP) which was designed with the major objectives of bringing back automotive assembly, developing local content and deepening technological knowhow.
Presently, no fewer than 50 heavy duty trucks are assembled every week at the plant located at the Emene Industrial Layout following a manufacturing agreement between Transit Support Services Limited (TSS), a subsidiary of ABC Transport, and ANAMMCO, to utilise the assembly facility.
TSS is the official representative of Shacman, a Chinese brand, in Nigeria
It was learnt that with the return of increased production at the plant, majority of the technical staff who were kept on standby while skeletal operation lasted, have since been recalled, even as a number of the local content suppliers have been engaged to provide some of the needed components and accessories.
This was confirmed by the Managing Director of TSS, Mr. Frank Nneji, who also disclosed that many truck buyers, especially big corporate users like construction companies, haulage and logistics firms and cement manufacturers, have realised that Shacman has an edge over competitors in terms of price-quality comparison.
“Shacman is the best truck brand from the Chinese auto industry,” he stressed. “That is what many of the companies that used the trucks and trailer heads are coming back to us with large orders, with the result that the ANAMMCO plant is bursting again”
Nneji described Shacman trucks as very strong and highly dependable vehicles, disclosing that the technology was originally MAN Diesel.
“I have always made it clear that Shacman is a Chinese brand with European DNA,” he stated.
With an installed capacity of about 7, 500 trucks per annum (in a single shift) at the time of commissioning the plant in 1980, ANAMMCO dominated the truck and bus market for many years until an interplay of unfavourable factors led to a dip in its fortunes, and subsequent privatisation in 2007.
However, as the automotive policy formally took effect on July 1, 2014, having been approved the year before by the Federal Executive Council, industry watchers were optimistic that it would not take long before normal production would return to ANAMMCO.
It was therefore no surprise that encouraged by the policy, TSS commenced the production of Shacman at ANAMMCO, leading to the roll-out of the first batch of the heavy duty trucks and trailer heads in 2014.
It was learnt that the volume of production had continued to rise gradually till a few months ago when orders for hundreds of Shacman trucks were placed by a couple of big corporate customers that opted for Shacman after a comparative analysis of various products from competing brands.
A team of visiting journalists observed recently that hundreds of the trucks were being branded at the premises with some of them bearing the name and logo of the Dangote Group.
A part of the Shaanxi Automobile Group Co. Ltd, China (which has over 45 years of manufacturing experience and remains one of the leading automobile manufacturers in China), Shacman has in the past four decades evolved into one of China’s domestic large-scale automobile enterprise groups with over 33,000 employees.
It is ranked number 24 among Chinese top 500 mechanical enterprises. Shacman also engages mainly in development, manufacture and sales of off-road vehicles, heavy-duty trucks, medium-duty, large and medium-sized coaches, medium and light-duty trucks, minivan, new energy vehicles, heavy-duty axles, light axles, Cummins engines and automobile components.
