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Kia Motors Nigeria has once again expressed its unwavering commitment to the production of its made-in-Nigeria cars, promising to utilise over 90 percent locally-sourced materials in the production.
It is worthy to note that the ultra-high-tech and state of the art Kia plant in Lagos has produced over 4,500 units of cars since its launch in the first half of 2015.
Also, the trajectory growth of the locally- assembled Kia cars and its top-notch quality built to the exacting standard of the global brand have galvanised the company to explore local content in its assembling chain thus influencing its plan to reach a 90 percent local content utilisation in the production of its cars.
Currently, the plant produces all nine KIA models and worthy of note within its foray of the made in Nigeria Kia cars is the 2016 Kia Sorento.
Outside Korea, the home country of Kia, the automobile company has a long history of building locally to meet the specific needs of local customers with assembly operations using ‘car kits’ sourced locally and other parts of the world.
In a statement issued in Lagos on Tuesday, the Chief Commercial officer, Kia Motors Nigeria, Mr. Sandeep Malhotra, said: “Nigeria remains an emerging and growing economy in the world with vast potentials for growth, despite its myriad of challenges the country promises a large economy of scale, hence it’s incumbent upon us as a local investor to help realise her goals.
“As a company with an unswerving interest on the advancement of the nation’s economy, we have a plan to utilise 90 percent local content in our assembly process to help strengthen the economy.
“Buoyed by our increased acceptability among our valued customers in the last decade, we are now looking at further strengthening our foothold and expanding our reach in the localisation of our assembly plant.”
Malhotra said with its built-from-scratch assembly chain firmly in place and over a year of SKD production phase under its belt, Kia Motors Nigeria will now focus on the local content utilisation in its made in Nigeria Kia cars.
The plant in Lagos, according to him, is progressing on schedule for the utilisation of local contents in its assembling process and currently sourced some of its parts, including refrigerants, lubricants, and workshop consumables amongst others locally.
He added that the plant has the capacity to build up to 27,000 vehicles annually on flexible assembly lines that can manufacture several different models simultaneously to adapt to changes in buying trends.
