Ancar

Ancar ( Ancar Automóveis de Angola, SA ) was a private Angolan company that founded a joint venture with Škoda Auto in 2001 to establish a vehicle assembly plant in Angola. Ancar was considered an offshoot of the front company Ancar World Wide Investments Holding , a dubious financial company with European capital that is registered in the United States of America. However, Ancar Angola no longer exists and the project was discontinued, both on the German and the Angolan side, because of serious allegations of corruption against those who were primarily responsible at the time.

prehistory

The initiators of the project at that time were the former Škoda Auto - Board Helmuth Schuster and that of the Spanish Guardia Civil with a warrant searched series fraudsters Johann Johannsen . Due to dubious business practices of the two, the NDR drew attention to the VW corruption affair on July 14, 2005 in its political magazine Panorama . In accordance with this news, the Volkswagen Board of Directors reacted by dismissing the member of the Board of Management and also succeeded in ending the construction of the plant. Volkswagen's good reputation was at stake in Africa. It was feared that the partner company was a front company. Volkswagen only continued further negotiations after an extensive review of the company and then discontinued the project.

Current state

However, on June 28, 2008, Volkswagen surprisingly announced in a press release that the construction work would be continued and the plant would open in 2009. An investment of 15 million US dollars has been earmarked for this, including the development of a nationwide dealer network. Another Angolan company, ASGM, wanted to invest with $ 48 million in capital. The infrastructure with the associated dealer network is currently subordinate to Volkswagen of South Africa .

The current status is such that the Volkswagen group is currently not considering continuing to work on this project (status February 2011).

According to the original plans that were in effect in the years 2001 to 2005, it would have been in the work by only one assembler traded in Lisbon , Portugal disassembled vehicles again assembles and the operator of high profits promised. Angolan laws would have made this possible because this procedure promised new jobs for the people in the emerging country.

China is building

The Volkswagen AG project has now been temporarily suspended. The government of Angola has publicly refrained from doing so because of the entanglements that led to the highest levels of government ( Welwitschia dos Santos was involved in Ancar and is a daughter of President José Eduardo dos Santos ). Instead, a joint venture project funded by the China International Fund under the name CSG Automóvel fabricado em Angola was set up on the planned site, the Pólo Industrial de Viana , in Viana . Yumsun Nissan models are already being built here. (Status 2011).