Few months after German auto giant, Volkswagen announced plans to set up car assembly plant in Ghana, Japanese multinational automobile manufacturing company, Suzuki Motor Corporation has joined the growing league of foreign investors intending to set up a production facility in Ghana.
This latest move brings to three; global leaders in automobile manufacturing that have flagged of multibillion dollar foreign direct investment in Ghana due to salutary investment policies, sound ease of doing business and predictable tax regime.
Besides, one popular target of the auto firms investing in Ghana is to rely on enviable manufacturing environment to mass produce for the sub-saharan market with Nigeria in view after all.
Already, Suzuki has signaled making Ghana the hub of its operations in sub-Saharan Africa, as Mr Koichi Suzuki, Suzuki’s General Manager in-charge of Middle East and Africa disclosed when he called on President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo at the Jubilee House in Accra.
Suzuki said the company, which joins four other automakers- Volkswagen, Nissan, Renault and China’s Sinotruck-who have planned the assembly plants for Ghana, intends siting its distribution and after-sales service centre in the country in partnership with Compagnie Française de l’Afrique Occidentale (CFAO).
Continuing, he revealed that the company, which has over 50 percent shares in the Indian automotive industry, in collaboration with Toyota Tsusho, the trading arm of the Toyota Group that has the largest distribution network in Africa, intends to “find a next India on the African continent”.
Suzuki said his company is banking on the latest Ghanaian automotive policy which he said was salutary to international investment to enter Ghana, noting further that “We are highly interested to participate in the initiative made by the Ghanaian government to start production here to expand it and to grow it.”
“We firmly believe that our next growth will come here in Africa,” he stated, adding, “we want to contribute to the further development of African countries…Our vision is with Africa and for Africa.”
Business Hilights Ghana Bureau chief reports that the General Manager in-charge of Suzuki’s Middle East and Africa disclosed that the group produces annually 3.3 million affordable but reliable, safe and fuel-efficient vehicles, with engine capacities less than 1.6litres via its production plant in India that churns almost half of its global production.
On his response, Ghanaian president, Nana Akufo-Addo averred that “We are interested in developing a vibrant and dynamic automobile industry in Ghana; we have made several initiatives towards that end and finally, I believe we are now ready to outdoor our automotive policy, which will then let everybody know exactly, people like you if you want to come to Ghana, what is available to you in terms of government support, incentives and the rest of it, and also the obligation that will be on you if you wanted the Ghanaian space”.
