INCENTIVE PROGRAMME
Conditional tax-break deal with carmakers imminent
The government is close to agreeing to new tax breaks for international carmakers including Toyota Motor, Ford Motor and BMW in return for initiatives such as higher levels of employment, according to trade & industry minister Rob Davies. A deal on a 15-year incentive programme that will replace one that expires in 2020 should be reached in 2018, Davies said on Tuesday. Some elements of the arrangement are still to be finalised, but failure to reach a compromise could lead to companies closing plants and building vehicles elsewhere, he said. "We will be spending probably R2bn or R3bn a year on support for the auto programme," the minister said. "This is it. You either do it or you don’t have a motor industry," he said. At stake is an industry that accounts for about 7% of SA’s GDP, according to the minister, with carmakers building a combined 600,000 vehicles in the country in 2017. Both expanding BMW has spent more than R6bn on a plant in Rosslyn, north of Pretoria, and in April it...
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