Ghana sees less secondhand vehicle importations with the launching of Toyota assembly plant

Ghana President Nana Akuffo-Addo expects Toyota's newly-launched $7 million assembly plant with an annual production capacity of around 1,330 units in the country to help reduce its secondhand vehicle importations and boost its export earnings.

Toyota's assembly plant is the second to be put up in Ghana in less than a year, following Volkswagen's 5,000 unit-per-year assembly facility launched in August 2020.

Global automakers are seeing the potential of the African market, traditionally dominated by used-car sales, resulting in assembly units.

Ghana will offer generous fiscal incentives to boost its auto sector and attract automakers to assemble and produce cars there, according to Akuffo-Addo.

Potential investors include Nissan, Honda, and Peugeot.

Akuffo-Addo noted that the assembly units would reduce the use of foreign exchange to import cars in Ghana while the export of cars to other African countries will earn them much-needed foreign exchange.