REUTERS
An international group has launched a $73 million bus assembly unit in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, as it bets on local production for the Ivoirian and regional markets.
The assembly unit launched by the car manufacturer Iveco Group will produce “made in Côte d’Ivoire” minibuses in conjunction with its long-standing partner, the Société des Transports Abidjanais. The latter company was established in 1960 and is now 60% owned by the government and 40% by subsidiary IVECO Bus.
The assembly line is in the southern part of the Ivoirian economic capital. Its production capacity is 1,000 18- to 26-seat buses per year. It can manufacture different vehicles — buses, ambulances, troop transport vehicles for security forces, construction trucks — marketed under the Daily Ivoire brand.
The facility should enable Côte d’Ivoire to produce for its domestic market, where demand for vehicles from dealers grew by 17% in 2021 compared to the previous year, but also, in the long term, for export to the rest of West Africa.
For now, project promoters say their order book is full until 2024, thanks solely to the Ivoirian market. Iveco Bus already plans to set up operations in two of Côte d’Ivoire’s neighboring countries.
Iveco is ahead of several other manufacturers that also have announced that they would be creating vehicle assembly lines in the country. In 2019, Toyota signed an agreement with the Ivoirian government to open a commercial vehicle assembly unit, a project still under negotiation.
In August 2021, the Japanese group opened an assembly unit with a production capacity of 1,330 pickup trucks in neighboring Ghana.
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