The company will also make Ghana its hub for sales and marketing in West Africa. The announcements were made on November 6 in Accra, where Alan Kyerematen, Ghana’s minister of trade and industry, and Mike Whitfield, managing director of Nissan Group of Africa, signed a memorandum of understanding.
Nissan aims to be the first carmaker to assemble vehicles in Ghana, building on its market leadership in the country. Nissan models accounted for 32.8% of vehicle sales in Ghana last year. The company’s cars, pickups and SUVs are sold through a national network of six sales and service outlets.
“Nissan is the most popular auto brand in Ghana because the quality of our products and services has won the trust of our customers,” Whitfield said.
He mooted that Ghana next needed to estblish a long-term automotive industrial development policy to give investors further confidence in Ghana,
“Properly administered automotive development policies can bring about structural economic change in a short time. We’ve seen this happening with our plants in South Africa and Nigeria,” Whitfield said.
South Africa last month sold 51 866 cars and exported another 34 134, of which Volkswagen sent the highest number of vehicles onto the RoRo boats, exporting 7 295 units.
In South Africa, Nissan’s on average sold over 4 380 units and exported over 4 700 in the last quarter.
But while SA’s sales are growing in single digits, Ghana’s vehicle sales have been growing steadily at an annual rate of about 10% and now stand at about 9 150 vehicles a year, giving a lot of scope for growth in a nation of over 28 million people.
Such is the scope for growth, religious entrepreneur Safo Kantanka have started assembling “Katanka” SUVs, which seling from 85 000 Ghanaian cedi, or about R250 000,, with a three year warranty.
