(Ecofin Agency) - French car manufacturer PSA Peugeot Citroën has opened in Ethiopia, a new assembly unit, in association with local industrial group Mesfin Industrial Engineering, Les Echos reported on Sept 6.

Established in Wukra, situated 800 km north of Addis Ababa, the unit will assemble Peugeot 301, 208 and 2008 received in kits. It will initially produce about 1,000 cars a year, for the Ethiopian market and other countries of the Horn of Africa.

Since the beginning of the year, PSA Peugeot Citroën sold 115,000 cars in the Africa-Middle East region, thus 17% more than last year, over the same period. Under its “Push to pass strategy”, the manufacturer set a target of 700,000 cars sold in 2021 in the region.

To achieve this, the group is establishing more industrial units across the Africa-Middle East region. In April, it signed with a partner in Iran an agreement to manufacture about 200,000 cars yearly. PSA Peugeot Citroën also launched the construction of its Kenitra factory, in Morocco, which should also produce 200,000 cars per year in a few years. In Algeria however, agreements related to its assembly unit are yet to be signed.

PSA Peugeot Citroën has decided to establish an R&D centre in Casablanca to design models that will be adapted to these markets whose consumers’ expectations often vary from Europeans’.