Over the weekend, John Wang, the head of the company's African division, paid a courtesy call on the state governor, Ben Ayade, in Calabar to update him on progress regarding the project. According to Mr Wang, the setting up of the assembling plant would be preceded with the establishment of service centres all over the state for all the company’s trucks in Nigeria.
Mr Wang disclosed that the establishment of a Sino assembly plant in the state has to do with its first-class infrastructure and the nature of the people. He also cited the peaceful investment climate in the state as one of the motivating factors, adding that Cross River is the most peaceful in the south-south with an enduring weather that has a huge potential for the development of trucks and is good for industry establishment.
Mr Wang said: “Sino Truck is a state-owned company and the number one heavy duty truck manufacturing company in China with over 56 years’ experience, with a good record in truck manufacturing and assembly.”
Governor Ayade said the decision by the Chinese firm to site a truck assembling plant in Calabar was largely because of the social climate and peaceful nature of the state, noting that this would complement his administration’s efforts at industrialising the state. He noted that in a bid to fast track the planting of 5m trees to support climate change, it was pertinent that haulage would be a core component as there would be movement of young seedlings from one part of the state to another.
Governor Ayade said: “With our aggressive climate change campaign, for which the World Bank is setting aside $16bn for Africa and the United Nations setting aside $100bn annually for developing countries, you can see that transportation of young seedlings for planting, vegetation and forest cover becomes a key issue. We are far more prepared and more geared towards the utilisation of the product more than you can imagine.”
Disclosing that the state, under a partnership agreement, is building the biggest garment factory in Africa, among other things, Governor Ayade said the amount of manufacturing will be so huge that the haulage component will be massive. He further disclosed that the Cross River State government is building a new city dedicated to haulage and is also committed to building a strategic petroleum and gas reserve.
“Taking advantage of 123 kilometres of Atlantic coastline, it gives you an idea of the volume of trucks and vehicular movement of materials and equipment that will take place in Cross River State as we are building a deep seaport, which our detail design shows will be 14.5 metres in terms of draught. The phase two of the deep seaport will be a span of 1.2 kilometres, which automatically will make it the deepest seaport in Africa and therefore, able to take any vessel,” Governor Ayade added.
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