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Business Times reports that Toyota SA plans to invest in new equipment to upgrade facilities and carbon neutral activities and will soon make an announcement on manufacturing components locally, which is likely to create jobs.
“We are making significant investments even in this soft economic environment because we have a long-term view that if we don’t invest, it’s going to be very difficult for us in the future,” said Toyota SA president and CEO Andrew Kirby. He did not reveal how much the company would spend, but said manufacturing operations would need to change significantly, not only to achieve carbon neutral targets but because the technology and processes used would be different. Despite weak trading in 2023, Kirby said no jobs had been lost and this year Toyota would implement programmes that were likely to result in new jobs. “The biggest opportunity for job creation is in localising manufacturing components and we’ll make some announcements later in the year related to investments,” Kirby said at Toyota's annual state of the motor industry event. He indicated that the car industry expected volumes for this year to marginally increase 1.5% as excess stock was cleared out after soft trading last year. Toyota bucked the negative retail trend by ending 2023 on 142,612 units. Leon Theron, head of sales, said 2023 was a tough year for the industry and added: “To achieve 142,000 units is remarkable in a market that really slowed down.”
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Thabiso Mochiko at Business Times (subscriber access only)
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