Trade and Industry Minister Dr Rob Davies has approved the revised guidelines for the Automotive Investment Scheme (AIS) and the People-carrier Automotive Investment Scheme (P-AIS).

The amended AIS guidelines provide clarity on the nontaxability of the grant, as well as on the eligibility of tooling companies to apply for the same benefits as those enjoyed by component manufacturers (CMs) under the scheme.

“Empowerment is now included as part of the economic benefit criteria and a clearer description of research and development requirements has been provided.

“The guidelines also make provision for increased support for component manufacturers, with the grant increasing to between 25% and 35% of the value of qualifying investment in productive assets approved by the [Department of Trade and Industry (DTI)],” said Davies.

The amended guidelines also provided “relaxed and more inclusive” requirements for strengthening the supply-chain criteria and introduced support towards enterprise level competitiveness improvement costs for component manufacturers.

Accelerated grant disbursements for component manufactures on a 40:30:30 split had also been included in the guidelines.

Meanwhile, the P-AIS guidelines have been amended to align them to the revised AIS guidelines, specifically on conditions applicable to competitiveness improvements, administrative requirements and increased grant support for CMs and tool-making companies.

Two applications have, to date, been approved under the P-AIS, a subcomponent of the AIS. Both applications were from original-equipment manufacturers (OEMs).

The total incentive approved amounted to R26.1-million, while 191 jobs have been created in this sector.

Meanwhile, by March, 195 projects, with a total incentive value of R6.2-billion, had been approved under the AIS.

R4.8-billion had been disbursed to OEMs and R1.3-billion to CMs.

A total of 46 373 jobs were sustained and 9 850 created as a result of the investments, the DTI reported.