President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is set to commission Nissan Assembly Plant today Thursday March 31, 2022 at the Tema Industrial Area.
He told Parliament in his State of the Nation Address for 2022 that a new state-of-the-art assembly plant with the capacity to assemble 5,000 new vehicles per annum has been established by Nissan in Tema, which is currently producing Nissan and Peugeot brands of vehicles for the Ghanaian and West African markets.
“I will have the pleasure to commission this new plant in Tema tomorrow [Thursday, 31 March 2022]”, the President announced to Parliament on Wednesday, 30 March 2022.
He said three other vehicle manufacturers, namely KIA, Hyundai and Renault are also expected to commence commercial production this year.
According to him, “quite a number of global vehicle manufacturing companies have set up assembly plants here in our country, and started producing vehicles for our market and for the West African market”.
He said the “well-defined Ghana Automotive Development Policy we outdoored in August 2019 has facilitated this welcome development”.
The President noted that since June 2021, “Toyota and Suzuki brands of vehicles are being produced here, commencing with the production of Hilux Pickup and Swift models”.
Earlier, President Akufo-Addo explained that the coming in of automobile companies in Ghana has been facilitated by Government’s bold move to develop the Ghana Automotive Development Policy under the auspices of the Ministry of Trade and Industry with generous fiscal incentives.
He said by assembling, and, ultimately, producing cars in Ghana, new and highly skilled jobs are being created, the use of foreign exchange to import secondhand vehicles will be reduced, and, at the same time, the exports of Made in Ghana cars to other African markets will earn our nation much needed foreign exchange.
“The vision is to make Ghana a fully integrated and competitive industrial hub for the automotive industry in West Africa, and we are very much on course,” he said
Already, Government said it has also acquired a building complex at the South Industrial Area, in Accra, to be developed as the Ghana Automotive Development Centre, which will, amongst others, serve as a one-stop support destination for the implementation of the Auto Policy, and be a hub for the development of advanced skills for the industry.
The complex will also house the Ghana Automotive Development Council, a consultative stakeholder body, to oversee the auto policy implementation, and promote Ghanaian participation in the development of the sector.
In addition to the attractive fiscal and non-fiscal incentives offered to investors in the auto sector, Government, in promoting the patronage of locally assembled vehicles, has directed all State institutions to purchase locally assembled vehicles to demonstrate Government’s commitment to support “Made in Ghana” vehicles.
By Vincent Kubi