The New Navara continues Nissan’s 60-year legacy of investment in Africa

Nissan made its first investment towards Africa’s growth sixty years ago with Datsun’s presence in Zimbabwe and the Nissan Motor Company Limited opening its Rosslyn operations in South Africa. It was the humble, but bold start of a journey.

 

With a firm belief in the opportunities that lie on the African continent, the group furthered its investments in 2000, when it purchased a 37 percent stake from Sanlam Group; opened an assembly facility in Egypt; and became the first overseas auto manufacturer to begin local assembly in Nigeria in 2014.

 

In 2019, Nissan continued its commitment to the continent, making a R3 billion investment announcement to facilitate the South African production of the Nissan Navara pickup for the entire African continent.

 

The bold investment spoke to the Navara rolling off the production line alongside the popular NP200 half-ton pickup, and NP300 one-ton Hardbody. Today, the production of the Nissan Navara has increased to take up all the production facilities at this plant.

 

The impact of the Navara production announcement has been substantial, extending from the Nissan facility, to its people and the communities in which Nissan operates.

 

The modernised Rosslyn plant now has a new, flexible production line and additional facilities. R190 million has already been invested in re-skilling and training Nissan South Africa’s employees to expand their expertise in preparation for the Navara’s local production the company’s production trial engineers, for example, spent three months receiving virtual training (due to COVID-19 travel restrictions) from Nissan trainers in Japan on implementing the model here in South Africa.

 

Nissan South Africa has also incubated eight new component manufacturers and related companies, from their small black business start-up programme, and identified a further 15 who can assist with components for the new Navara.

 

The installation of the necessary machinery, including robots, meanwhile, and new press machines, were completed during lock-down by highly skilled local engineers under the “virtual” online guidance of Japanese, technicians sitting at home in their respective countries as everyone came to grips with the global pandemic.

 

In its most recent investment in vehicle production on the African continent, Nissan and its Ghanaian business partner Japan Motors has invested $9 million in a local vehicle assembly facility that assembles the Nissan Navara for markets across East Africa.