Ford SA
Ford Motor Company announced a R15.8 billion rand investment in its South African operations, marking its biggest ever investment in its 97-year history in the country.
President Cyril Rampahosa was on hand on Tuesday for the massive investment announcement into Ford’s Silverton operations.
“This investment will further modernise our South African operations, helping them to play an even more important role in the turnaround and growth of our global automotive operations, as well as our strategic alliance with Volkswagen,” said Dianne Craig, president, Ford’s International Markets Group.
"New advanced technologies and systems will modernise and grow the Ford Silverton Assembly Plant to support expanded production of the all-new Ranger pickup truck, starting in 2022."
“Ranger is one of our highest volume, most successful global vehicles. This investment will equip our team with the tools and facilities to deliver the best Ford Ranger ever, in higher numbers and with superior quality,” Craig said.
Ford said it would also invest around R5.5 billion to upgrade tooling at the company’s major supplier factories.
“Supporting our suppliers with this new tooling will ensure we modernise together to deliver world-class quality for the all-new Ranger at higher volumes for our domestic and import customers,” said Andrea Cavallaro, director of Operations, Ford’s International Markets Group.
Ford said the expanded production will help create 1200 incremental jobs in South Africa, increasing the local workforce to 5 500 employees, and adding an estimated 10 000 new jobs across its local supplier network, bringing the total to 60 000.
With this investment, Ford’s Silverton Assembly Plant is expected to generate revenues exceeding 1.1 percent of South Africa’s gross domestic product.
