Driving a new masterplan
FUTURE motor industry policy could be driven by the targets of more than doubling SA’s vehicle production and increasing local content by at least 50%, according to Renai Moothilal, director of the National Association of Automotive Component and Allied Manufacturers.
Moothilal, a former senior official in the Department of Trade and Industry team overseeing automotive policy, said in an interview that discussions between industry, the government and labour on strategy should be guided by goals.
The discussions are intended to create an “automotive masterplan” to 2035, after the Automotive Production and Development Programme ends in December 2020.
While it is understood that there are some points of agreement between the parties, there are also big differences on how to proceed.
Moothilal said: “The idea of the masterplan is that everyone should buy into a common vision of where the industry sees itself in 2035.
“Once we have that, we can decide how to get there.”
A commonly held ambition was to increase the local industry’s share of global vehicle production from less than 0.7% now to at least 1% by 2035.
Based on projections, that would mean growing annual assembly from 600 000 in 2016 to about 1.5million.
Moothilal said there was consensus that local content should increase. Most components still came from overseas. Despite some companies boasting local content value of more than 65%, the industry average was below 40%. Moothilal said this should be at least 60%.
“These two goals are key,” he said. “If we can all agree on these as objectives, then all policies must support them.” However, a 60% target content was not enough.
Black participation in the industry was too low and the multinational components companies that dominated the supply industry had to provide more opportunities for black entrepreneurs to supply sub-components and other services. — TMG for local