Leading indigenous auto manufacturing group, Innoson Group has join the league of Set-Top-Box (STBs) providers for the smooth migration of the country from analogue to digital television viewing experience for Nigerian come June next year.
The group said it has secured foreign investment credit facility of $300million USD for local production and supply of a minimum 5-8million Set-Top Boxes to support the Federal Government of Nigeria Digital Switch Over (DSO) project being handled by the National Broadcasting Commission in order to meet the deadline switch of June 2017.
Details from the group indicated that the amount was part of Innoson Group partnership with a Consortium of Chinese Investors to pump in $1billion (USD) into Nigeria information technology sector of the economy; to include 400million Nigeria’s DSO Project Digital Satellite TV station and additional 600million USD covering other important sectors.
According to the public relations & media assistant at Innoson Group, Cornel Osigwe Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, had on Monday, October 25, received the consortium of Chinese Foreign Investment Group led by Liu Baoju, a deputy minister of Communist Party of China in Shandong Province.
Baoju is the Chairman of Shandong Broadcasting Group and Shandong Cable Interactive Service Ltd, the world’s biggest TV operators and Huang Gang, Senior Vice President of Inspur Group and President of its Oversea Headquarters. Inspur Group is China’s leading cloud computer solution supplier and cloud service provider involving all IT applications.
This visit which comes as one of the gains of President Muhammadu Buhari’s visit to China will attract a foreign investment of 1Billion USD.
Osigwe gave a breakdown of the investment as currently agreed by the Chinese Consortium is as follows; “Financial foreign investment credit facility of $300million USD for local production and supply of a minimum five to eight Million (5-8million) Set-Top Boxes to support the Federal Government of Nigeria Digital Switch Over (DSO) project being handled by the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission in order to meet the deadline switch of June 2017.
“Financial foreign investment of $100million USD to establish the latest technology and biggest DTH (Direct-To-Home) Digital BING Television Station across all states of Nigeria. In addition, the two above immediate investment is being followed by another 600 Billion USD investment in which negotiations is almost fully concluded with our strategic partners to cover the following areas of Nigerian economy; Smart City (CCTV camera) using cloud computing total solution that is known as E-Policing to cover the whole landmass of Nigeria.
