The UK government has restated its commitment to ensuring a transition to green manufacturing in Africa.
UK Minister for Africa, Vicky Ford gave the assurance when she visited Nigeria’s e-mobility platform and an electric vehicle assembler, MAX on Wednesday.
During the visit, Ford said that it was intended to highlight the UK’s commitment to the transition to green manufacturing in Africa and the strong economic links between the British and Nigerian economies in Lagos.
It will be recalled that MAX recently raised over £23 million to ramp up the assembly of electric two-and three-wheelers with the support from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s (FCDO) Manufacturing Africa programme.
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The company said it plans to deploy 24,000 of these green vehicles across its markets in the next three years, helping to reduce both greenhouse gas emissions and urban pollution.
“Firms like MAX demonstrate that we don’t have to choose between growing Nigeria’s economy and protecting the environment,” Ford said during the visit.
Speaking further, she said that the work done by Manufacturing Africa (MA), a programme funded entirely by UK Aid, is just one of the many ways the UK is working to help accelerate global action to tackle climate change.
She maintained that UK’s support for Nigerian firms through FCDO programming further emphasises its commitment to bilateral trade and investment in Nigeria.
“UK-based financiers are backing MAX’s growth and MAX has found a UK business partner in Field Ready,”she said. “Support for investment in Nigerian firms will also help by creating quality jobs – MAX hopes the money raised will allow it to create 1600 direct jobs and about 27,500 indirect jobs”.
She said this will be essential to meet the 5 million jobs the IMF estimates will be essential to meet Nigeria’s unemployment gap.
Story was adapted from Vanguard.
