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Eastern Cape-based motor manufacturer, General Motors South Africa, has announced a major export order.
The company said on Thursday that it had been awarded a R6bn export contract in partnership with component manufacturer Tenneco South Africa, for the supply of catalytic converters to North America.
The programme is a major boost to the Eastern Cape economy and will create and retain employment through various value streams of manufacturing, supply and support services.
In addition, the mining sector will benefit from a projected requirement of 10 tons of platinum group metals over the duration of the programme.
GMSA president and managing director, Mario Spangenberg, said that the decision to award the contract to South Africa is a great show of support by their parent company.
"It comes ahead of a clear legislative framework by the South African government to support the strategic growth of exports," said Spangenberg.
GMSA Communications Manager, Denise van Huysteen, says the catalytic converters will be fitted to GM's next-generation V-6 engines which will be built and sold in North America from 2015.
"This project is an accumulation of twelve years of working together and currently we exporting 2.6 million catalytic converters per annum to GM globally, so this is fantastic news."
"Supplier operations in South Africa are competing with other operations around the globe. In order to attract business, suppliers need to be globally competitive in the critical areas of both cost and productivity. In parallel to this, business needs to operate in an enabling economic environment supported by a stable labour force." said Johnny Saldanha General Motors International Operations Vice President of Global Purchasing and Supply Chain
He added, "A key characteristic of vehicle manufacturing is that we often have to plan as far as five years in advance for the next vehicle programmes. We need to have a predictable and clearly defined legislative framework in order to accurately predict future trends and make realistic business plans."
