HyIron puts Namibia on automotive map
European Union (EU) Ambassador Ana Beatriz Martins has pointed to HyIron, the local hydrogen-driven iron refining initiative that is already exporting green iron, as proof that Europe intends to honour its commitments to Namibia's industrialisation drive.
"Many automotive producers are looking at HyIron," Martins said this week. She described the project as among the clearest examples that "Namibia is walking the path towards green industrialisation together with us as partners."
Martins made the remarks at a joint announcement on Wednesday 22 April in Windhoek alongside Asser Nashikaku, acting executive director of the Ministry of International Relations and Trade, ahead of the second EU-Namibia Business Forum at the Windhoek Country Club from 11 to 13 May.
Deliberate collaboration
The ambassador said the EU had spent the past three years working with the Ministry of industries, mines and energy and Namibian partners to increase local value addition and the concentration of critical raw materials being processed, with further specifics to be announced at the forum. She promised to unveil more local mineral value addition successes at the event.
"Working hard with the ministry of mines and energy and Namibian partners to find ways to increase local value addition and the concentration of critical raw materials being processed has been a focus of our work over the last three years," she said.
The forum follows the first such gathering in Brussels in October 2021, where the late President Hage Geingob signed a strategic partnership with the EU to develop green hydrogen and critical raw material value chains in Namibia. A roadmap was agreed upon a year later.
Europe now wants to demonstrate political willingness with concrete investments that broaden the scope of that first forum. EU Commissioner for the Environment Jessika Roswall will attend, alongside more than 400 high-level participants drawn from the European and Namibian private sectors, policy makers, innovators, and financing institutions. Nashikaku confirmed that Vice President Lucia Witbooi would join ministers and senior Namibian officials at the event.
Planned automative revival
In addition to green hydrogen, renewable energy, critical raw mineral beneficiation, and agribusiness, the forum will also examine investments in culture and creative industries, as well as opportunities to attract automotive sector players to Namibia, a conversation that inevitably turns to the N$190 million assembly plant in Walvis Bay that Peugeot-Opel built in 2018 and has since walked away from.
The French automaker has exited Namibia, leaving the facility shuttered. The plant, which never achieved economic viability in part due to regional rules of origin that constrained planned exports, is currently under care and maintenance while the government considers how best to repurpose it. Nashikaku acknowledged the constraints that had undermined the original venture but remained measured in his outlook.
"We aspire to negotiate flexibility which allows products from Namibia. We want to make them from African resources to add maximum value," he said. "We are trying to see how best to use the plant and to add more value addition from the region to achieve rules of origin."
Nashikaku declined to comment on a pending Peugeot lawsuit related to the plant's failure to achieve economic viability.
The Walvis Bay facility nonetheless frames part of the broader automotive conversation at the forum. Where Peugeot's departure represents a cautionary tale about the structural barriers facing Namibia's manufacturing ambitions, Martins and Nashikaku are casting the forum as an opportunity to reset that narrative, with European automotive interest in green industrialisation potentially offering a more durable foundation for future investment.
MSME support
On the question of small and medium enterprises, Nashikaku said the ministry was developing mechanisms to uplift small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in collaboration with the ministry of industrialisation, mines and energy, and that broad participation mattered. While smaller businesses would be able to register and follow the forum online, Martins encouraged them to pursue partnerships with European companies, particularly in cultural and creative industries and agriculture, where she expected more business-to-business opportunities to emerge.
The ambassador also used the occasion to underscore the depth of the existing trade relationship. The EU's tariff regime has allowed zero duties on Namibian exports to Europe for ten years, with 97% of export products currently covered under the Economic Partnership Agreement. Namibian beef, blueberries, and fish have all benefitted from the arrangement.
"We are Namibia's biggest trading partner," Martins said.
