VW begins local assembling of vehicles …Nissan and Toyota to follow soon
In March this year officials of the company took some Ghanaian government officials round their assembling plant in Accra.
Earlier this year
also, a planned official launch of the plant was called off due to the novel
coronavirus but it hasn’t stopped the German
automaker Volkswagen’s (VW) work from going on. It has started putting
its car assembling plant in the country to good use with pictures emerging of
some of the cars already assembled.
VW has already
begun production of five Volkswagen models—Tiguan, Passat, Polo sedan, Teramont
and Amarok pickup, at its Accra plant place. Nissan and Toyota are expected to
open their own plants this year.
This would be
first phase of the company’s operations in the West African nation, as it plans
to expand across Africa.
To support demand
for locally-assembled vehicles and save hard-earned foreign exchange, the
government has reduced the car imports into the country. Ghana’s top five
imports by value are vehicles, industrial machinery, electronic machinery,
cereals, and plastics.
Of the vehicles
imported, used and salvaged automobiles constitute a significant proportion and
are quite popular since most people cannot afford new vehicles.
In
a recent press briefing in Accra, Mr. Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, Minister of
Parliamentary Affairs and Majority Leader in parliament, said: “You would know
that thanks to the economic environment that we have now, and of course the
political stability that we have in the country, the sojourning of the
President is yielding positive dividends in the sense that there are many
auto-manufacturing companies that now want to come and begin assembling
automobile in the country.”
“Volkswagen
has given massive indication; Nissan is also doing same, Toyota and Sinotruck
as well as Renault. Now if they want to come we need to clean up the
environment, you cannot have them to come and begin production of vehicles when
you allow unfettered importation of second-hand vehicles. It doesn’t occur
anywhere, so you have to regulate the importation of second-hand vehicles.
“For
a start, maybe we may begin by banning the importation of vehicles that are
older than 10 years and then also prevent the import of salvaged vehicles
(accident cars),” the Majority Leader added.
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