Over the past week, Eastern Cape carmakers and dealerships have admitted that they were feeling the pinch as car sales kept plunging since the beginning of the year – with Port Elizabeth’s General Motors South Africa (GMSA) planning to cut 520 jobs.

According to figures released by the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of SA (Naamsa) last week, during June the South African car industry experienced a 22% year-on-year drop in new vehicle sales.

MBSA spokesperson Madelaine van Wyk said no broad scale cost reduction programmes were planned by the carmaker in the short term, but each of its respective brands would be individually monitored in the face of the market conditions.

Van Wyk said: “The mature automotive industry is always challenged with being more creative about deployment of capital and operating expenses; MBSA is no different. But whilst the car market in South Africa is certainly under pressure, the Naamsa figures reflect that MBSA has been more resilient than certain other carmakers in the face of this difficult market.”

Van Wyk said the timing of the company’s introduction of new brands in a deteriorating sales market could boost its offering and keep buyers’ interest “rejuvenated”.

“The plant in East London is ready for the local production of the Triton (due to start this month), which also provides MBSA with the opportunity to add four new models, one double cab and three ClubCabs, to the Mitsubishi Triton line-up.”

Earlier this week, National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa’s Eastern Cape spokesperson, Irvin Jim, said the union planned an automotive industry strike on July 23 to protest against GMSA’ s proposed retrenchments.

Van Wyk said MBSA has not received a strike notice to date, but said it would have an adverse effect on their production processes in East London.

“Unfortunately, because of the high production volume there are not many opportunities to catch back on lost volume.

“However, due to the flexibility amongst the three C-Class manufacturing plants, lost volume could be made up for by the German plants, Sindelfingen and Bremen,” she said