AUTOMART AFRICA - AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY DIRECTORY | KENYA | TANZANIA | ETHIOPIA

The launch of Volkswagen’s first assembled vehicle in Rwanda is delayed by a month and has been moved to June said Volkswagen Rwanda Mobility Solutions, Rwanda.

Volkswagen is going to have its assembling facility in Rwanda, which is likely to be operational in June. They will start assembling midsize Passat, subcompact Polo and SUVs Teramont for local sale.

The Rwanda development Board told that there were only 300,000 cars on road for population of 12 million, last year. Wherein, most of them were second hand imports from Japan.

"We are trying to break this thought-pattern that Africa is poor; they can't afford (new) cars," Said Thomas Schaefer, CEO of Volkswagen group, South Africa.

VW has also registered a local company in Rwanda for the ride-sharing services and they’ve also started working towards developing an application for mobiles. This should be operational in no time.

Volkswagen is planning to spend about 20 million USD to start developing the assembling plant and ride-hailing service - part of a push into sub-Saharan Africa. They claim that 500-1000 jobs will be created with the first investment including the drivers of the first batch of cars for the ride-hailing service, in the region.

VW has been manufacturing in Nigeria and Kenya since a few years and SA being the oldest amongst, has the production unit since 1951.

Posted on : 23 Nov,2024 | News Source : ABNews