Industrialisation and Trade Minister, Lucia Iipumbu said her ministry together with other involved ministries are working towards finding solutions to the 18 per cent export tariff that has hindered the operations of the Peugeot Namibia Assembly Plant (POAN).
Iipumbu while receiving eight vehicles purchased by her ministry on Thursday, all assembled locally at the POAN plant situated in Walvis Bay said accessing export duties incentive provision through the South African Customs Union (SACU) has hampered the POAN plant from achieving its goal of exporting cars to the South African Development Community (SADC) and SACU markets.
She said the first step taken towards rectifying the impediment experienced at the opening of the plant was together with the Ministry of Works and Transport at the end of 2019, acquire the manufacturing certificate which gives them the licence and permission to assemble vehicles locally.
“Secondly we had to enter into discussions to look at SACU rules and to find a solution. We had to develop a framework for support of the automotive assembly sector in Namibia which at the later stage we had to domesticate to that of SACU to find a solution in terms of reducing the required duties to buy and bring the car parts into the country as well as to export the completed vehicles to the SACU and SADC markets,” Iipumbu explained.
Speaking while handing over the vehicles, POAN Chief Executive Officer, Robert Van Rooijen emphasised that the 18 per cent export tariff is the main challenge experienced by the plant.
He said the initial idea was to produce eight vehicles per month but this has not been the case as there is no market supply and has thus opted to assemble about three vehicles a month just so that the employees are not out of practice.
The plant, he said has assembled 160 cars since its opening in 2019 and they currently have about 130 vehicles on the factory floor which are unable to be exported due to the 18 per cent duty but they are ready to be sold locally.
Namibia has a 49 per cent shareholding in the project which is an investment agreement through the National Development
Corporation and the French multi-national manufacturer of automobiles, Groupe PSA.
Source: Namibia press Agency
