Sinotruk begins operations on assembly plants – Oppong-Nkrumah

Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah has confirmed that Chinese vehicle manufacturing company Sinotruk, has begun assembling its plants under the Automotive Development Policy by government.

According to him, there are a number of other car manufacturing companies that have also begun assembling their plants and are poised to produce vehicles soon.

“Some of the assembly plants are already functioning like the Sinotruk plant but what is exciting is that we’ve got timelines and if you read the joint report of Trade and Finance committee, German car giant Volkswagen in the first quarter of 2020 intends to roll out its vehicles, Toyota by August 2020, Suzuki before the end of 2020, Nissan in the second quarter of 2020 and with Renault, Kia and Hyundai, discussions are still ongoing with them,” he disclosed on Citi's Eye Witness News on March 3.

Oppong-Nkrumah further revealed that government plans to make second-hand car dealers’ distributors of the cars assembled in Ghana by the automobile companies.

This follows the decision by government to pass a bill that will ban the importation of overaged and accident vehicles into the country.

The move, however, has been argued by citizens and the minority in parliament that the bill when passed, will deny many people their livelihoods.

“We have an opportunity to explore ways of onboarding them to become the new dealers of these vehicles assembled in Ghana so, in the end, we are able to develop a local industry for cars manufactured here in Ghana, create jobs and create incomes and bring more safety on our roads,” Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah explained.

On the mode of pricing for consumers, he said that government will set in place the modalities to ensure that the prices of the cars that will be assembled by the automobile manufacturing firms will be fairly reasonable.

“In the investment plan that they will bring, which we will approve, we will negotiate with them on the sales parameters and the sales prices so that we are assured that they are not pricing out the Ghanaian,” Oppong Nkrumah assured.

Ghana under the Ministry of Trade and Industry earlier put in place the Automotive Development Policy to provide the necessary framework to establish assembly and manufacturing capacity in the country.

Toyota, Suzuki, Volkswagen, Nissan and Sinotruk are among the major automobile companies with an interest in Ghana are set to commence operations in 2020.