A Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, Hon Nana Ama Dokuaa Asiamah-Adjei, has launched the latest VW T-Cross brand of vehicle assembled in the country, under the Ghana Automotive Development Programme.
The event took place at the Kempinski Gold Coast Hotel in Accra. The Volkswagen T-Cross is a subcompact crossover SUV and it is the smallest SUV model from Volkswagen.
VW Ghana was the first Auto Company to be registered under the Ghana Automotive Development Programme and launched its commercial activities in July, 2020 to assemble the Polo, Tiguan, Passat, Teramont, Amarok and the Caddy.
The Deputy Minister revealed that since the launch of its assembly operations in August 2020, VW Ghana has assembled and sold about a 1,000 vehicles.
She said with disruptions to the world economy due to Covid-19, Ghana was seeking to take advantage of opportunities that exist within the auto value chain whilst developing a comprehensive Component and Supplier Development Programme framework to attract investments from Original Equipment Component Manufacturers and facilitate among others, the transitioning from Knocked Down assembly to vehicle manufacturing whilst enhancing localisation within the industry.
She said this decision by the Government is to enhance the value of the country’s natural resources including Bauxite, Iron Ore, Petroleum, that directly feeds into vehicle production, which will help establish Ghana as a preferred destination for component manufacturing.
She was optimistic that the attraction of other Global OEMs into the vehicle assembly space would create the conditions necessary to attract these component manufacturers who move with these OEMs to feed into the supply chain.
Hon Dokuaa announced that in the coming months, other OEMs would be completing the establishment of their assembly plants and would join the five (5) registered assemblers under the Auto Programme, a further attestation to the positive response received from industry player towards vehicle assembly. This would help achieve the objective of making Ghana a vehicle manufacturing hub on the continent and secure markets both at the sub-regional and continental markets for locally assembled vehicles.
According to the Deputy Minister, the Government, aside the directive on the procurement of locally assembled vehicle by its agencies, is also putting in place measures that would create the platform for Ghanaians to procure locally assembled vehicle under flexible conditions as it exist in other economies to increase the demand for new vehicles and help renew the national vehicle fleet.
The CEO of VW VW Ghana Ltd (who also doubles as the President of the Automobile Assemblers of Ghana), Mr. Jeffrey Oppong-Peprah, commended Government for the automotive development programme. He said the company was looking to extending its reach beyond Ghana to countries such as Cote d’Ivoire, Senegal and Cameroon.
