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Johannesburg - Toyota has announced the creation of an empowerment fund with start-up funding worth R42m, to help promote transformation in the automotive industry.
According to a statement issued by the car manufacturer, the Toyota Empowerment Trust aims to develop skills and enterprise initiatives. The trust is eventually expected to support qualified technicians to start their own maintenance firms and offer services to car manufacturers in the industry.
“Trainees will be able to hone their skills at our manufacturing facility in Prospecton, Durban, and we will no doubt use their new talents to full effect at our plant,” said Andrew Kirby, president and chief executive of Toyota South Africa.
Kirby believes the programme will help create employment for trainees in the industry and enable small business owners to develop a “stable base of work” by expanding their services to manufacturers.
Toyota has also set up a new robotics automation facility to operate alongside its corporate training division.
In June, Kirby and other leaders in the industry made a commitment to transformation through a master plan, following discussions with the ANC to settle concerns about “radical economic transformation”. The discussion also focused on creating opportunities to increase the participation of black entrepreneurs and industrialists in the industry.
“We must transform quicker, we must solve the country’s challenges. We need to continuously have engagements,” Kirby said at the briefing about transformation.
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