Components need their own development programme

ED RICHARDSON
NAAMSA WANTS to see an aggressive, separate development programme for the component industry in 2012. Dr Johan van Zyl, president and chief executive of Toyota South Africa and president of Naamsa, told delegates at the 2006 CAR conference at Auto Africa late last year that this was vital to increasing the local content of vehicles made locally. It would contribute to a cut in the automotive sector’s substantial balance of trade deficit. An increase in local vehicle production will also go a long way to improving this negative position. Van Zyl said production of a million units a year would really put South Africa on the global map as a supply source. It would bring added benefits of support for the components suppliers, job creation, more affordable vehicles (through economies of scale) and export growth that would be compliant with World Trade Organisation regulations.