Mozambique: A new brand is born: Matchedje Motor

Matchedje Pickup testing in South Africa

* Many thanks to Anton Smit for the tip *

Chinese investment through the Shanghai-based China Tongjian Investment Co. has transformed Mozambique into a car manufacturing and exporting country, at a time when first-world countries like Australia drop out of the list. Last September, the first car marketed by Matchedje Motors Ltd, Mozambique’s domestic carmaker, was put on the market: a four-wheel-drive pickup priced at 720,000 meticais ($23,700) which is in actual fact a rebadged Fudi F16 from China. According to Bloomberg, Matchedje plans to build 30,000 vehicles in its initial year of production, also including buses and electric motorcycles, 30% of which for the Mozambican market and the remainder for export, all of these very ambitious targets. The construction of the China Tong Jian Investment factory, costing an estimated US$200 million, is the result of an agreement the Mozambican government signed with the company in 2010.

The first Matchedje Pickup coming out of the Matola factory in Mozambique.

Matchedje, based in Matola near the capital, Maputo, employs about 80 people. In a second phase of development in 2016 and 2017, the company intends to expand its production to 100,000 vehicles a year, 500,000 by 2020 and 1 million in 10 years. Sky high targets for the Matechedje brand, but at least they got our attention. Matchedje intends to build a pan-African sales network and develop a Mozambique automotive industry, the company said. According to the Matchedje website, passenger cars currently available for sale also include the F1 SUV (a rebadged VW Tiguan), the CUV (a Huanghai Aurora), the V3 SUV (a previous generation Chery Tiggo 3) and the X3 sedan (a Geely Emgrand EC7).

Matchedje X3 and V3

Matchedje is the name of the village in the Sanga district of Niassa province, which hosted the 2nd Congress of the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo), which is the political party currently in power in the country. China Tong Jian Investment is based in Shanghai and its largest shareholder is New Zealand’s Morgan Foundation and its business focuses on promoting China-Africa relations. We will explore the nascent African auto industry into further detail in a future STRATEGY article named Is Africa the new China? Stay tuned for more insights…

Sources:  www.bloomberg.com, www.macauhub.com.mo, www.chinatongjian.com, www.matchedje.org