The Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Trade and Industry were finalising incentives for semi-knockdown vehicle assembly, including a local-content percentage that assemblers must meet to qualify for VAT exemption.
This will be a minimum local assembly requirement for vehicle manufacturers seeking to benefit from VAT exemptions under Ghana’s automotive policy. It is expected to be announced in the next budget, President John Dramani Mahama has said.
President Mahama made the announcement on Tuesday, September 15, 2026, when he commissioned Phase Three of the Zonda Tech Ghana Limited vehicle assembly plant.
“I wish to inform you that the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Trade and Industry are finalising their discussions on the incentives for semi-knockdown automotive assembly. We are going to introduce a percentage which you must achieve to be able to qualify for the VAT exemption,” he said.
President Mahama stressed that manufacturers would be required to undertake a meaningful portion of the assembly process locally before they can access the tax relief.
“We don’t want manufacturers who bring the whole car. They just remove the steer and the tyres and they bring it here, put the tyres and put a steer and say we’ve assembled this vehicle in Ghana,” he said.
He said the new requirement will ensure that companies benefiting from Ghana’s automotive incentives contribute more substantially to local manufacturing and value addition.
Hire purchase
The President said the government was ready to connect banks and Ghanaian locally assembled vehicle manufacturers for them to design a financing instrument to enable salaried workers to purchase locally assembled vehicles under hire purchase agreements.
President Mahama said many Ghanaians in formal employment, including public sector workers such as doctors, teachers and nurses, as well as private sector executives, wanted to buy new cars but lacked access to financing to do so.
He said a long-term credit that allows them to buy these cars on hire purchase and pay over time from their salaries is the way to go.”
“So government is ready to collaborate with the private sector. We’re ready to collaborate with the manufacturers. We’re ready to sit down with the banks and come out with financing instruments that allow people who are employed and engaged and receive an income to be able to take a car of their choice and pay monthly over a certain period until they have defrayed the cost of the vehicle,” he said.
President Mahama said an expansion of Zonda Tec’s assembly plant, which he said would nearly double the company’s direct workforce and generate about 1,000 additional indirect jobs across logistics, maintenance, component supply and distribution.
The President linked the financing push to a wider strategy of building Ghana into West Africa’s automotive manufacturing hub, citing the Ghana Automotive Development Policy, which has attracted brands including Volkswagen, Toyota, Nissan, Hyundai, Honda, Kia, Great Wall Motors, Geely, Chery, Forland and Peugeot, alongside indigenous manufacturer Kantanka.
President Mahama commended Zonda Tec’s founder, Yang Yang, for establishing the Zonda Tec Academy to train young Ghanaians in automotive skills and the Zonda Tec Foundation, which has announced scholarships for Ghanaians to study automotive manufacturing in China.
