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Bloemfontein - Chinese automobile manufacturer CMC is to build a vehicle factory in the Eastern Free State town of Harrismith at a cost of R1bn.
CMC’s best-known South African products are the Amandla and the Ses’Buyile taxis.
This distributor of Chinese minibus taxis, Plutus and Tigo bakkies and the Lifan passenger vehicle plans not only to manufacture cars for the local market, but also to export.
The project could create 2 000 jobs in a region characterised by unemployment and poverty.
CMC, or the Changfeng Motor Corporation, has been doing business in South Africa since 2008. In China the company is, inter alia, a partner of Mitsubishi.
The South African company is part of the Moola family’s CCE group, and one of the biggest privately-controlled vehicle importers and distributors.
It's also the first company to market a 16-seater taxi, the Ses’Buyile, successfully. This vehicle looks like the Toyota Quantum, but is considerably cheaper.
It was a strategic decision to build a factory in South Africa, said Nazeer Moola, CMC’s chief operating officer.
He said the company is in South Africa to stay, and customers will be reassured about after-sales service if the product is locally produced.
CMC plans to produce both left-hand drive and right-hand drive vehicles in Harrismith for export. Moola said Harrismith’s location – halfway between the company’s head office in Gauteng and the port of Durban – was ideal for the purpose.
The environmental impact study for the proposed factory is, according to Moola, virtually complete and if everything goes according to plan, the factory will be finished by the end of next year.
As to whether the envisaged local factory can produce the vehicles for the same price as the imported Chinese ones, Moola admitted that high local labour costs were a challenge.
But, he said, they have no choice – they have to supply the vehicles to the local market just as cheaply as they do the imported ones. The exports will probably prove profitable enough to offset the costs.
- Sake24
CMC’s best-known South African products are the Amandla and the Ses’Buyile taxis.
This distributor of Chinese minibus taxis, Plutus and Tigo bakkies and the Lifan passenger vehicle plans not only to manufacture cars for the local market, but also to export.
The project could create 2 000 jobs in a region characterised by unemployment and poverty.
CMC, or the Changfeng Motor Corporation, has been doing business in South Africa since 2008. In China the company is, inter alia, a partner of Mitsubishi.
The South African company is part of the Moola family’s CCE group, and one of the biggest privately-controlled vehicle importers and distributors.
It's also the first company to market a 16-seater taxi, the Ses’Buyile, successfully. This vehicle looks like the Toyota Quantum, but is considerably cheaper.
It was a strategic decision to build a factory in South Africa, said Nazeer Moola, CMC’s chief operating officer.
He said the company is in South Africa to stay, and customers will be reassured about after-sales service if the product is locally produced.
CMC plans to produce both left-hand drive and right-hand drive vehicles in Harrismith for export. Moola said Harrismith’s location – halfway between the company’s head office in Gauteng and the port of Durban – was ideal for the purpose.
The environmental impact study for the proposed factory is, according to Moola, virtually complete and if everything goes according to plan, the factory will be finished by the end of next year.
As to whether the envisaged local factory can produce the vehicles for the same price as the imported Chinese ones, Moola admitted that high local labour costs were a challenge.
But, he said, they have no choice – they have to supply the vehicles to the local market just as cheaply as they do the imported ones. The exports will probably prove profitable enough to offset the costs.
- Sake24
For business news in Afrikaans, go to Sake24.com.
