‘Car industry needs to get back to full production without delay’

CAPE TOWN – The automotive sector, the bedrock of South African industry, will face severe headwinds in the local and export market when it comes out of lockdown, and it needs to begin full production as soon as possible.

This was according to Deloitte’s managing director for emerging markets and Africa, Dr Martyn Davies, who said in an interview yesterday that the industry needed to be freed from the lockdown soon or face the possibility of having to “re-industrialise” later in the year, as large parts of the industry collapsed or closed.

Restrictions to prevent the spread of Covid-19 will be eased from Friday, so that parts of the economy can re- open as the government introduces a five-level phased response to restart the economy.

The motor industry value chain, from component manufacture to retail, and which employs about 500000 people has been closed since the start of the lockdown.

Vehicle export contracts, mainly to Europe, continued to fall away, said Davies. In terms of the draft proposals under Level 4 lockdown, the car and component manufacturing industry could scale up production to 50percent of employment from Friday. Under Level 3, production was allowed to increase to 100percent of employment.