Ford Motors has announced plans to invest $1.05 billion in its South African manufacturing operations. This includes upgrades to expand production of its Ranger pickup truck.
The investment includes $683 million for technology upgrades and new facilities at its plant in Silverton, a suburb of the administrative capital Pretoria, and $365 million to upgrade tooling at major supplier factories. Additionally, the plant will manufacture Volkswagen pickup trucks as part of the Ford-VW alliance.
The expanded production is looking to create 1,200 jobs with the company in South Africa, thus increasing the local workforce to 5,500 employees, while adding an estimated 10,000 new jobs across the carmaker’s supplier network.
According to Andrea Cavallaro, operations director of the company’s International Market Group, the investment also aims to increase Ford’s installed capacity in South Africa from 168,000 to 200,000 vehicles.
Ford Motor Company is an American multinational automaker with its main headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. It is the second-largest U.S.-based automaker (behind General Motors) and the fifth-largest in the world (behind Toyota, Volkswagen, Hyundai-Kia and General Motors) based on 2015 vehicle production. At the end of 2010, it was the fifth largest automaker in Europe.
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