The company
Holland Car is producing and distributing cars in Ethiopia. The products are fulfilling the specific needs of this market. Holland Car PLC is established in 2005 and is a joint venture between the Dutch company Trento Engineering BV in Sittard (50%) and the Ethiopian company Ethio-Holland PLC in Addis Ababa (50%). This cooperation is combining the expertise of production equipment and processes (Trento) and the knowledge of the local market (Ethio-Holland). The production-site of 20.000 square meters is situated in Modjo, about 65 km south of Addis Ababa. The sales-office and the service-dealers are located in Addis Ababa.
Mission statement
The aim of Holland Car is to assemble cars in Ethiopia for local distribution and export.
Holland Car will focus on the lower market-segment by competitive pricing to enable a relative high production-volume.
Holland Car strives for high customer-satisfaction by delivering superior products and services, like good after-sales care, financing facilities and availability of low cost spare-parts.
History
Beginning 2005 Trento and Ethio-Holland decided to cooperate in a project, with the objective to build a car-factory in Ethiopia, to assemble cars and to sell those for local- and export-markets. This initiative was coming from Ethio-Holland that had experience with importing second hand vehicles (Lada’s) from Holland to Ethiopia. Reduced availability of these vehicles created the need to search for an alternative.
The alternative we found was to produce locally an existing vehicle that was perfectly fitting the African market demands. This first vehicle-model is called DOCC (Dutch Overseas Car Company) and is from originTofas Sahin. This vehicle has been build since the seventies and in the last years by Tofas, a Turkish automotive car producer. Holland Car is has bout parts from Tofas to ship those to Djibouti and thereafter to Modjo by road-transport. Our second model is ABAY. This modern product is very well specified and will be attractive to young buyers.Two main drivers did help us to decide for this direction. Firstly, the Dutch government, contributed with a PSOM-subsidy which reduced the start up costs significantly. Secondly, Ethiopia has a good investment climate. It allows for example a lower import tax rate for raw materials than for finished products.
Mid 2005 the building activities had started. Mid 2006 the factory, including production equipment was ready to start production and after training of the local employees, the first car was build. In this period, about 80 to100 Ethiopian people were active to build this factory.
Organisation
 Ir Wilhelmus Cornelis Maria Guns General Manager Holland Car Plc & General Manager of Guns BV |
 Eng Tadesse Tessema Alemu Operations Manager Holland Car PLC General Manager of Ethio-Holland |
The management of the Holland Car is mainly of Dutch origin with extensive automotive experience. The knowledge of car assembly is transferred to local employees in the first production year.
The employees of Holland Car are all Ethiopians. At the start, there will work about 50 people. This number will grow rapidly with the increasing production volume.
 |
Assembly plant in Modjo The production factory of Holland Car is situated in Modjo, 65 km south of Addis Ababa, on the main road to Nazret. In this plant, the vehicles are produced. |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
Sales-office in Addis Ababa |