Durban – Toyota South Africa Motors (TSAM) has forecast that its Prospecton plant in Durban will return to its pre-floods level by December this year.
The plant, extensively damaged in the April floods, was officially reopened today in a ceremony attended by the media, TSAM top brass as well as KwaZulu-Natal Premier Nomusa Dube-Ncube and Siboniso Duma, MEC of Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs.
TSAM said prior to the floods it had enjoyed a healthy market share of 30 but this shrunk to 17%, 18.1% and 16.3% in the months of May, June and July – respectively due to the plant having to be repaired.
TSAM also noted that while there were more 4 000 vehicles damaged on site during the floods, the costliest damage was to the plant infrastructure itself – including robots and other machines.
TSAM’s Prospecton Plant produces the Corolla Cross and Quest as well as Hilux, Hiace Ses’fikile and Fortuner – while also assembling a variety of Hino commercial vehicles.
It said that all the other production lines have resumed production with the exception of Corolla Quest, which is due to commence on Wednesday (August 17).
It said while the organisation had concerns about the destruction at the plant, its first priority was the safety and welfare of its employees, contractors as well as their families.
“We communicated with Japan (Toyota Motor Corporation) on the night of April 12; I very quickly got a message back of support and an offer from them to do whatever they could to help. They dispatched a lot of experts to support us, helping us to repair, identify, diagnose and replace and then communicating with suppliers all over the world to source replacement parts,” said president and CEO of TSAM, Andrew Kirby.
“The commitment to rebuild this site has been incredible. We know that our recovery will not be smooth, but by next year we plan to be stronger and better than we were before.
“TSAM’s operations at Prospecton will actually be better and we plan to use this crisis to try and improve our equipment and upgrade where we can. In fact, we’ve created an internal slogan for our recovery called Rebuilding Better Together. This talks to how we all work together as one team to find a way of renewing and improving our site at the same time,” added Kirby.
MEC Duma said: “The reopening of the plant is not only good news for Toyota South Africa, but also to the economy of the province. This also shows Toyota’s commitment to investing in the province of KZN as well as the local automotive industry.”
Premier Dube-Ncube paid tribute to Toyota South Africa for the effort put in to reopen the plant.
“To all the stakeholders who participated in the clean-up operations, we would really like to thank you as the government of KZN. We know that through your hard work and agility, you were able to save people’s jobs.
“A global brand like Toyota with its deep roots in the KwaZulu-Natal soil gives us an edge to take advantage of the opportunities presented by regional integration and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCTA) with a combined market of more than 1.3 billion people and a combined GDP of about $3.4 trillion (about R56 trillion).
