The Managing Director of Stellantis Africa, manufacturers of Peugeot, Badreiddine Mansouri, has called on the government and investors to prepare for the second stage of vehicle manufacturing in the country.

 “Ghana has a rubber market which can produce the foam needed for paneling, the country can also build batteries, and coolant which is simply water”, he said.

Badreiddine Mansouri lauded the country for putting together a comprehensive automobile policy which compel the firm to build an automotive plant in Africa, located in Tema.

He expressed believe in Ghana’s commitment in seeing to the implementation of the promises made to key players in the automobile industry to the latter. On April 30, 2020 government passed the Customs (Amendment) Act, 2020, Act 1014 to accommodate incentives for the automobile industry.

Automotive imports are among the top five imports, amounting to $1.69 billion in 2019.

Morocco is currently Africa’s leading vehicle manufacturer, overtaking South Africa, exporting about $10 billion worth of vehicles annually. 80% of the 400,000 vehicles are exported annually to Europe.

The country has also provided a 10 year tax free holidays for vehicle manufacturing firms. Meanwhile about.

According to global statistics, Africa controls just 1% of the brand new vehicle market with about 88,000 purchases annually.

In Ghana, 7,000 brand new vehicles are purchased annually.

As the Peugeot plant opens with 3008 model assembled in commercial quantities, Ghana is expected to reduce its imports of second hand vehicles.

Asad Nazir, CEO of Silver Star, added, that based on the prevailing market condition leading to high taxes and freight costs,  Silver Star will be producing 10% of its capacity.  

Ghana’s automotive industry

Ghana has categorised auto assembly into Semi-Knocked-Down (SKD), Enhanced SKD and Completely-Knocked-Down (CKD), based on the qualifying list of local or foreign assembly, and Fully-Built- Units (FBUs). Each category is defined according to the place of assembly or manufacture.

There are currently seven players in Ghana’s automotive industry, including Peugeot, Suzuki, BMW, Nissan and Kantanka.

Global Automotive industry Challenges  

Ghana is facing an increasing challenge in turning around the delivery of brand new vehicles on time, owing to a global shortage in conductors.

Chief Executive of the Kalmoni Group, importers of several brands of vehicle, Nouhad Kalmoni, says it’s now taking 8 months to meet the demand of consumers, instead of the previous four months.

According to him, if the situation in Ukraine persists, it is likely certain modern features in vehicles may be taken out completely.