GOVERNMENT has completed work on a motor vehicle policy which seeks to rescue the operations of local assemblers, suffocated by growing imports.
BY TATIRA ZWINOIRA
This comes on the back of the increased strain from imported vehicles such as pre-owned cars from Japan due to their affordability.
Industry and Commerce minister Mike Bimha told NewsDay yesterday that his ministry had crafted the policy and would be seeking Cabinet approval on the document.
“We have put together a motor vehicle policy, which is subject to be presented to Cabinet. It addresses the challenges and pertinent issues in the motor vehicle assembly sector. So those are the issues that are covered in the policy, but it has not yet been presented to Cabinet.
But we have finished working on it and consulting the people (local assemblers) you are talking about,” he said.
Bimha said government was looking at going back to ordering the same volumes of vehicles they used to order before the imported cars crippled local assemblers. Imported vehicles have fast-found a market in Zimbabwe with cars five years or older finding their way into the market.
The luring factor of these imported vehicles has generally been the lower pricing as depressed economic conditions have made it difficult to offer credit and reduced disposable income.
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For years, local assemblers have been complaining about the imports with Quest Motors stating these had affected huge government contracts that they used to have.
Quest Motor Corporation sales and marketing director Niroshia Abdulla said government had helped by reducing duty, but that the assemblers needed more government support by having them buy from them.
“Currently there are a few departments buying small numbers of units from us, but the bigger volume sales are still going to imported vehicles. There has to be a meaningful change in the mind-set of Zimbabweans led by government to buy from local producers instead of insisting on buying imported goods. We are currently producing a variety of vehicles from 1-tonne pickups to 65-seater buses.
The brands we are making such as Foton, Yutong and Zhongtong are the same brands that are being imported fully built into the country,” Abdulla said.
“Local assembly is struggling right now. We are operating at around 1% capacity due to lack of uptake from government departments and the private sector. This problem has also been compounded by the fact that it is very difficult to get money to pay for kits due to the current situation in the country.
Our prices are already lower than our competitors. To get them even lower, we would need to increase the volume of production so overheads can come down.” She said a study would reveal that even against imports, their prices were starting to go lower.
Local assemblers, apart from Quest Motors, include AVM and Deven Engineering.
