GE Reiterates its Commitment to Actualizing its $1 Billion Investment Agreement

MD WELTEK, Pedro Egbe, Executive Sec./Chief Executive Officer,

Nig. Content Development & Monitoring Board, Engr. Ernest Nwapa;  

President & CEO of GE Africa, Jay Ireland and

Supply Chain Head, GE Global, Phil Griffith.

Global leader in Energy, Healthcare, Transport and Technology, General Electric (GE) once again reiterated its commitment to fulfilling its pledge to invest $1 Billion in Nigeria across transportation and energy as it hosted potential suppliers of services under the aegis of the Petroleum Technology Association of Nigeria (PETAN), to an engineering conference which took place at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, in Abuja. 

The event is the second of such meant to kick start the preparations towards actualizing GE’s investment in Nigeria, the first edition which took place in Lagos.

Speaking at the event,  the President and CEO of General Electric, Jay Ireland said, “the Engineering fair was aimed at bringing together companies with the potential to offer technology services as a means of kick starting the $1 Billion investment commitment made by GE to the Federal Government. GE is working towards unleashing the full compliments of its capabilities in Nigeria in order to see Nigeria become a base to serve the technological service needs of West Africa when it comes to manufacturing and servicing of parts.”

Mr. Ireland reiterated the commitment of the company to meet the requirements of Nigeria’s local content policy with a significant increase in the employment and plans to set up a training programme for the recruited staff in order to build capacity and capability. “GE is making these investments using its own capital; we are not financing this through a venture capital company as a sign of how much we believe in the potential here in Nigeria.”

Mr. Emeka Ene, the President of PETAN represented by Mr. Pedro Egbe, the Managing Director of WELTEK noted that developing local content capabilities in technology and manufacturing rests on building sustainable partnerships with organizations like GE. He said, “This partnership between GE and PETAN is a strategic supply chain agreement for the growth of local content, products and services in the oil and gas industry. GE is coming with a new perspective of building a truly Nigerian operation and we at PETAN that this relationship will help provide the needed avenue to actualize development in the industry.”