Samsung Heavy Industry commits to growing shipbuilding in Nigeria

Jongseok Kim, the managing director, Samsung Heavy Industries Nigeria has said the firm is committed to investing in the creation of a manufacturing environment, with adequate skilled labor, to eventually enable the construction of vessels in Nigeria.

Kim, who was represented by David Inglis, business development manager, Samsung Heavy Industries Nigeria (SHIN), said this in his speech at the inauguration ceremony of the Maritime Group Executive Committee, Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), Thursday, October 26 in Lagos.

Aligning with the theme for the occasion, “The Maritime sector in Nigeria: Shipbuilding in Focus”, Inglis said, as a global player in the shipbuilding and maritime industry across the world and a home to one of the world’s top three shipyards in the world, the firm strongly can take a lead in developing shipbuilding and offshore industry in Nigeria.

“Anything SHIN Manufacture in Nigeria can be sold to any African country, making Africa’s largest economy a centre of technical excellence with the branding of large household names.”

Speaking further, he said Nigeria has 900km of coastline and over 200 million people, who all rely on the importation of goods and products on a daily basis, stressing that without the shipping industry, our daily lives would change significantly.

He added that it was one of the reasons that Samsung decided to invest in the country.

Michael Olawale-Cole, the president of LCCI noted Nigeria’s shipbuilding industry is strategic and important to the economy as approximately 80 percent of international trade is done by sea.

Cole, who was represented by Gbenga Ismail, Vice President of LCCI and chairman of the Real Estate Group, said that the shipping industry also creates jobs, grows the manufacturing sector, helps earn foreign currency, improves national security, and gives access to markets in Africa and around the world.

He pointed out that the shipbuilding sector has not received the desired attention for a thriving sector, while advocating for sound regulation, high level of certifications and standards, and well-knit network with other shipping giants across the globe.

“Nigeria should aim to be the maritime hub in Africa and drive intra-African trade through a sophisticated maritime sector, according to Ismail.

“There’s no better time than now to develop massive domestic shipbuilding capabilities in the country”.

“We need to make the most of this opportunity and take a queue from the wealthiest economies in Asia and how they have developed their maritime sector,” Cole said.

According to him, “With our oil and gas sector, the coming of new private refineries, and revving campaigns for non-oil exports, we need a thriving shipping industry, especially one where indigenous shipping companies are supported to own ships to facilitate international trade across the West African sub-region.

“The federal government, working in consultation with the private sector can create the enabling business environment that supports a thriving shipping industry in Nigeria,” he added.

In stating the impact SHIN had on the country’s maritime industry, Inglis said “The EGINA Project, an oil and gas facility funded by Samsung, had indeed allowed Nigeria to participate in heavy but the lack of shipbuilding and repair facilities is a challenge, even though the location -proximity to the Atlantic ocean- could be used to its advantage in the ship repair business.”

However, Inglis called for the involvement of youths in Nigeria’s shipbuilding industry.

“This is the support the youth in Nigeria need, skills that can be transferred into other industries, and allow the migration of qualified artisans into the country to spread the knowledge and skills nationwide”, he said.

Samsung Heavy Industries is an offshore EPC contractor with unrivalled competitiveness, maintaining large market shares in the fields of high technology and high-value-added products such as FPSO, LNG carriers, VLCC and Drill Ships.

Among its achievements, Samsung was able to deliver the world’s biggest floating production, storage and offloading vessel (FPSO), The EGINA for the very first time in Nigeria.