MOTOR INDUSTRY
Namibia to build Peugeot and Opel vehicles
In a surprise announcement, Groupe PSA, the parent company of automotive brands Peugeot, Citroen and Opel, says it will begin assembling vehicles in Namibia. This comes after Opel production ended in SA in 2017 with the decision by Opel’s former parent company, General Motors, to disinvest from the country. The assembly will begin in the second half of 2018 at a facility in Walvis Bay as part of a joint venture between Groupe PSA and the Namibian Development Corporation. Groupe PSA said it intended to reach an annual production of 5,000 vehicles by 2020. The first vehicles to be assembled would be sport utility vehicles, the Opel Grandland X and the Peugeot 3008. The group said other products would follow if there was sufficient demand. It will be a semi-knockdown (SKD) operation, with the vehicles being imported into Namibia without a number of key components. They will then be reassembled for distribution within the Southern Africa Customs Union region of SA, Namibia, Lesotho, Swa...
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