![\"Nissan's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/DJ6XIDR5CRO45LP237MF76ZQ2A.jpg\")
Last Friday, Nissan\u00a0announced the sale of\u00a0its manufacturing assets\u00a0in South Africa to the local arm of China\u2019s Chery Automobile. (Supplied) <\/p>\nSA will present measures by the end of February to boost local vehicle production, including reviews of luxury taxes on imported cars and import tariffs, the government said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The government is reviewing its automotive policy to address challenges, including the global shift to electric and hybrid vehicles, tighter emissions standards, evolving trade dynamics and rising competition from low-cost Chinese and Indian imports.<\/p>\n
SA lost its long\u2011held position as Africa\u2019s largest vehicle producer to Morocco this year.<\/p>\n
Mkhululi Mlota, chief director of automotives at the department of trade, industry and competition, told legislators his department was conducting a comprehensive auto policy review, which he said has been a slow process, in parallel with addressing concerns raised on local production.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re looking specifically at how we can turn the tide on localisation. There are a number of proposals that have come from industry and other players on how we can do that,\u201d Mlota said. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe should have a final proposal before the end of February.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last Friday, Nissan\u00a0announced the sale of\u00a0its manufacturing assets\u00a0in South Africa to the local arm of China\u2019s Chery Automobile. (Supplied) <\/p>\n
Officials are considering tax reforms that would favour local vehicle production. <\/p>\n
They include changes to the ad valorem tax, or luxury tax, and reassessing hiking tariffs on imported vehicles, deputy minister of trade, industry and competition Zuko Godlimpi told legislators.<\/p>\n
He said engagements with the National Treasury will commence soon.<\/p>\n
SA\u2019s 2018 automotive master plan set a goal of lifting local vehicle production to 1% of global output \u2014 about 1.4-million units \u2014 and to increase local content in South African assembled cars to 60% from below 40%. In 2025 local production rose to 602,302 units.<\/p>\n
However, imported vehicles continue to rise, with light vehicles accounting for 69.3% of national sales in 2025, reflecting an influx of affordable model imports, especially from India and China.<\/p>\n
Godlimpi said the government is talking to Chinese car manufacturers about setting up more manufacturing in South Africa.<\/p>\n
Last Friday, Nissan announced the sale of its manufacturing assets in SA to the local arm of China\u2019s Chery Automobile.<\/p>\n
Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SA will present measures by the end of February to boost local vehicle production, including reviews of luxury…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":259295,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[138,149152,219,149150,149153,111,139,149154,69,149155,149151],"class_list":{"0":"post-259294","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-chinese-car-manufacturers-south-africa","10":"tag-economy","11":"tag-industrial-policy-south-africa","12":"tag-local-vehicle-production","13":"tag-new-zealand","14":"tag-newzealand","15":"tag-nissan-chery-deal","16":"tag-nz","17":"tag-sa-car-industry","18":"tag-south-africa-automotive-review"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}