Posted by From Madu Onuorah, Shangai on
WITH the take-off of a factory in Abuja next month, Nigeria is set to join the league of telephone handsets manufacturers.
WITH the take-off of a factory in Abuja next month, Nigeria is set to join the league of telephone handsets manufacturers.
According to Mr. Ye Weimin, vice president of ZTE, a Chinese firm involved in the project, the initial yearly production of the company will be 300,000 handsets.
Weimin yesterday in Shangai, the industrial hub of China, told President Olusegun Obasanjo at a meeting that the development would help generate employment and make cellphone more affordable.
The ZTE vice president stated that the goal of the company was to eventually increase production to one million handsets over time.
The forum was a meeting President Obasanjo had with three major investors in Nigeria during his two-day visit to Shanghai province, the industrial hub of China.
Another major investor, HUAWEI Technologies, told President Obasanjo that the company had concluded plans to invest more than $20 million in Nigeria for the assembly of telephone terminals.
The investors, led by Mr. Ryan Chen, said that they were definite that work would start soon and that by November 2006 the company would be commissioned.
The third firm, Alcatel, which is already in the country, was preparing to establish a software development outfit to compliment its current initiative.
President Obasanjo told the three firms that Nigeria has the requisite expertise in any field of human endeavours that they could deploy in the operations of their companies.
He also said that his government was keen on "urgently drawing from its relationship with China to drive trade and boost economic development and pledged continued strong support for foreign investors willing to establish employment generating ventures."