VW boss' dire warning

LETTER: MAKE-OR-BREAK YEAR FOR CAR MAKERS PROMPTS CALL FOR HELP

- Jaco van der Merwe

JOBS AT STAKE. Volkswagen Africa Group employees celebrate a milestone after two million VW Polos roll off the assembly line at the company's plant at Kariega in the Eastern Cape.

(Supplied)

In a desperate attempt to help reach out to government, Volkswagen Group Africa (VWGA) boss Martina Biene has written a letter to President Cyril Ramaphosa pleading for concise decision-making on policies to help safeguard the embattled local automotive manufacturing industry from imploding.

Local vehicle manufacturing, which provides tens of thousands of direct jobs across seven major assembly plants and hundreds of thousands more down the supply chain, is on a downward spiral economic analysts fear could eventually result in complete de-industrialisation.

This will be a hammer blow to the economy as the industry made up 5.2% of South Africa's gross domestic product last year.