DAVID FURLONGER: It’s all systems go (nearly) for BAIC in SA
Chinese company insists car production is imminent as it signs Absa finance deal
Is Chinese carmaker Beijing Automotive Industrial Co (BAIC) finally getting ready to build vehicles at its “white elephant” Eastern Cape assembly plant? BAIC South Africa CEO Charles Wang says the company hopes to start trial production runs in August. Commercial production is intended to follow “very soon”, though Wang says: “We can’t give an exact time.”
That uncertainty is par for the course. Since 2016, when Chinese and South African government officials turned the first sod at the site in the Coega industrial development zone, near Gqeberha, every stated deadline has been missed. Like the African elephant, which has a gestation period of nearly two years, BAIC’s 48ha white factory complex overlooking the N2 highway has taken forever to give birth...
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