Toyota urged to assemble cars

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On what they are doing to ensure that only vehicles with low carbon emissions are supplied to the country, Mr Baisama Awori, the Toyota national sales and marketing manager, said as a company, they cannot do much to stop importation of used vehicles because the taxes imposed on both old and new vehicles force people to import used vehicles.

Kampala. Former transport Minister John Byabagambi has urged Toyota Uganda to spearhead plans of opening a car assembling plant in Uganda.
While commissioning the Toyota Uganda showroom at Namanve industrial park on Thursday, Mr John Byabagambi, now the minister in charge of Karamoja Affairs, said since the company has started assembling the Yamaha motorcycles in the country, Toyota Uganda should help its loyal customer - government to start up a car assembling company to support industrialisation of the country.
“52 per cent of the government fleet is Toyota because of the quality of the Toyota products. Toyota is the biggest Japanese investment in Uganda and lately Japan is helping us with a cable bridge in Jinja and they are going to help us with constructing flyovers on all the road junctions in Kampala,” he said.

Increase in sales
Mr Masakazu Ohira, the general manager, Toyota Africa, automotive department, said since its establishment in Uganda in 2005, Toyota Uganda has registered a tremendous increase in the number of units sold in the country from 300 in 2015 units to 900 units last year.
“We have opened service centres in Gulu and Mbale for service operations because the industry is growing. We are employing 170 people countrywide to support capacity building of Ugandans,” he said. Mr Shimpei Fujita, the group leader, Africa division Toyota Motor Corporation, product planning, said the opening of the Namanve showroom and headquarters is a key milestone for Toyota Uganda because Toyota is the leading car sales brand and the corporation will ensure that better quality cars with new technology which is environment-friendly, are supplied to Uganda.

On what they are doing to ensure that only vehicles with low carbon emissions are supplied to the country, Mr Baisama Awori, the Toyota national sales and marketing manager, said as a company, they cannot do much to stop importation of used vehicles because the taxes imposed on both old and new vehicles force people to import used vehicles.
“At least the number of imported used vehicles is going down since the introduction of the taxes but still the VAT charge on new vehicles make it too expensive for Ugandans to afford new vehicles,” he said.