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SA’s motor sector hit by job losses and business shutdowns

Details

Parks TauReuters reports that low domestic sales of locally made cars, an influx of imports and low local content have led to 12 company closures and more than 4,000 job losses in the SA motor industry over two years. Department of Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Parks Tau told delegates at an auto parts conference on Wednesday that sales of 515,850 locally produced cars last year fell far below the SA Automotive Masterplan 2035 target of 784,509.

With about 64% of vehicles sold in SA being imports, Parks added that localization – the level of local assembly, labour and components – remained stagnant at 39%, well short of the 60% target. SA’s automotive industry employs 115,000 people directly, with more than 80,000 in component manufacturing alone.

With the US tariffs on cars and parts that were imposed from April, jobs are under threat as some companies are set to lose contracts in America. SA on Tuesday submitted a revised offer for a trade deal with Washington in an effort to lower the 30% tariff US President Donald Trump imposed last week. To help respond to the challenges in the industry, an incentive scheme for local manufacturing now included electric vehicles and associated components, Tau said. “Localisation is not merely policy compliance, it is existential. A 5% increase in local content would unlock R30bn in new procurement, dwarfing the R4.4bn US export market,” Tau said.

  • Read the full original of the report in the above regard at BusinessLive
  • Read too, Automotive industry unprepared for double whammy of US tariffs and EU carbon tax, at City Press (subscription / trial registration required)
  • And also, Government mulls big changes to auto subsidies, as BMW boss warns of existential crisis in SA, at News24 (subscription / trial registration required)


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