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Nigeria invites bids for stake in VWON car plant

LAGOS, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Nigeria invited local and international firms on Friday to express interest in acquiring a 35 percent stake in its rundown car assembly plant, Volkswagen Nigeria Ltd (VWON).

The Bureau for Public Enterprises (BPE) said in a notice that prospective investors must provide evidence of successful investment in the automotive, manufacturing or industrial sectors.

Located in Nigeria's commercial capital, Lagos, VWON was established in 1973 in a joint venture with Volkswagen AG as an assembly and manufacturing plant. It has the nameplate capacity to produce 39,000 cars and light commercial vehicles a year.

"In order to be pre-qualified, interested investors must possess verifiable evidence of their operational, managerial and financial ability," the notice said.

It said the closing date for expressions of interest is February 20. There was no indication of how much the agency wants to raise from the sale.

The BPE said pre-qualified applicants will be issued an information memorandum on VWON upon the payment of a $5,000 non-refundable fee.

VWON is one of about a dozen vehicle assembly plants built by the government in the 1970s with the hope of transforming oil-dependent Nigeria into an automobile manufacturing country.

Like VWON most of the plants have either shut down or are in a dire state due to mismanagement and neglect during decades of military rule, which ended in 1999.