A Chinese company, Great Wall Motors (GWM), has confirmed that it is planning to manufacture some of its cars in South Africa.
GWM, which oversees Haval, Tank, Ora and others, is one of the oldest Chinese companies in South Africa as this year it includes 19.
In the past few weeks there have been reports that GWM is negotiating with Mercedes-Benz to use part of its factory in Kugompo City (East London) for production.
The firm produces the C-Class and is said to be under a lot of pressure due to the decrease in the number of cars being built and sold in the country. And the number of vehicles being exported to the United States of America is said to have decreased.
The CEO of GWM South Africa, Kevin Li, confirmed that there are ongoing discussions between them and Mercedes.
Li, who was speaking to the media at the launch of the Haval H6 PHEV in Johannesburg this week, said that they had also discussed with Nissan. Nissan has a factory in Pretoria which was recently announced to be bought by the Chery Group.
Li said what they are looking at is hiring another company to produce for them or buying an existing firm because it takes time to build it from the ground up.
Conrad Groenewald, the chief operating officer of GWM South Africa, said that it is the right step for them to take to produce in this country since they are 19 years old.
“We talked to several companies but unfortunately we failed to find Nissan and Chery took over. That does not mean we have stopped,” he said.
He said that next month they will go with government officials and Naamsa car manufacturers to the Beijing Auto Show in China where they will continue other discussions.