Car Assembling In Ghana Will Not Collapse Car Dealers Business – His Excellency George Ayisi Boateng
The High Commissioner of Ghana to South Africa, His Excellency Mr. George Ayisi Boateng has admonished Ghanaian car dealers to be grateful and support President Akufo-Addo’s transformational agenda to manufacture automobiles in the country.
He said an automotive industry comes with a huge value chain to the advantage of the country including dealers and consumers.
Speaking exclusively on Wontumi TV/Radio, His Excellency Ayisi Boateng reiterated that the establishment of an automotive assembly and component manufacturing industry, is a strategic anchor of industrialisation and will serve as a new pillar of growth in Ghana.
“Let me appeal to car dealers to support President Akufo Addo’s automobile assemblying policy because its benefits far outweigh the thinking that it will collapse their business,”he told host of the show Oheneba Nana Asiedu.
He noted that the vision of the Nana Addo led NPP government for the implementation of the Ghana Automotive Development Policy (GADP) is to make Ghana a fully integrated and competitive industrial hub for the Automotive Industry in the West Africa sub-region.
Touching on the employment benefits for such a policy, His Excellency Ayisi Boateng emphasized that it will create more jobs since a chunk of Ghanaians shall be employed, adding that it will aide in the stabilization of the cedi against the dollar.
Background
The Government of Ghana, as part of its transformational agenda has identified Vehicle Assembly and Automotive Components Manufacturing as a strategic anchor industry to be facilitated and supported as part of the Ten Point Plan for industrial development.
As a result of this positive signal, Ghana is attracting investment in vehicle assembly from leading Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and investment partners, with positive projections of spill-overs into local manufacturing.
The majority of vehicles sold in Ghana are used vehicles. Salvaged vehicles were also a popular segment.
Importers brought in accident-damaged vehicles, fixed them up, and sold them in Ghana at prices that would be more affordable for consumers.
As part of the measures to encourage the local assembly industry, Ghana has now banned the import of salvaged vehicles.
This ban kicks in this October. Ghana has also now capped the age of used vehicles that can be imported into Ghana at 10 years.
