Luxembourg-headquartered International Automotive Components (IAC) said on Tuesday that it had formed a joint venture (JV) with South African automotive flooring, acoustics and trim components supplier Feltex Automotive, which marked IAC's initial entry into the growing South African automotive market.
The IAC-Feltex JV would be located in the Automotive Supplier Park of the East London industrial development zone.
IAC would provide design, engineering and manufacturing expertise for vehicle interior components, while Feltex would bring product and process expertise, as well as extensive experience in the South African market.
According to IHS’ industry projections, the South African automotive market was expected to steadily increase yearly passenger car production to more than 600 000 units by 2018.
The JV would initially support current production requirements for Ford, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota and Volkswagen South Africa operations and was positioned to support additional business opportunities.
Further, the facility would support global vehicle programmes, such as the Mercedes C-Class, for which IAC would supply the interior garnish trim, flooring system, trunk trim and exterior wheel arch liners.
"We believe that the joint venture's complementary products and design, engineering and manufacturing expertise will provide value to our multinational customers, which are producing vehicles in the Republic of South Africa," IAC president and CEO James Kamsickas said in a statement.
Over the past 24 months, IAC has entered the Malaysian and Thai markets through JV agreements, opened a greenfield manufacturing facility in Romania, a sales and engineering office in Korea and its eleventh plant in China.