TheCable

Innoson Vehicles Manufacturing (IVM) says plans are afoot to set up a manufacturing plant in Owerri, Imo state.

Innocent Chukwuma, chairman, Innoson Group, disclosed this on Friday during a facility tour of the plant in Anambra state.

He said the establishment of the plant in Imo is part of efforts to actualise the company’s mission to become a giant in vehicle production in Africa.

“The Innoson factory expansion will be situated at Naze Owerri in Imo. We have already acquired about 150,000sqm land for this project and construction works are ongoing,” he said.

Also speaking, Cornel Osigwe, head of corporate communications, Innoson Group, expressed excitement over the endorsement of Innoson vehicles by Chukwuma Soludo, governor of Anambra.

Osigwe said the endorsement showed the durability and capacity of the made-in-Nigeria vehicle.

“Governor Soludo is the first governor to use Innoson vehicles as official vehicle and we are hopeful that such endorsement will increase patronage from other state governments, corporate organisations, and other well-meaning Nigerians,” he said.

“Presently, IVM is producing vehicles for about five countries in Africa — including Sierra Leone, Mali, Congo, and Côte d’Ivoire.”

According to him, the company is currently migrating from manual production to becoming a fully automated production plant.

He added that the manual production plant has the capacity to produce about 10,000 vehicles annually, but at the completion of the migration, production capacity will increase to about 60,000 annually.

The facility tour was attended by the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) correspondents’ chapel in Anambra.