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South Africa’s New African Regional Training Centre

The centre gives dealers and service teams practical training in vehicle diagnostics, repairs and aftersales support.

Johannesburg: BAIC FOTON opened its Africa Regional Training Centre on 27 October 2026 and held its first training session the same day, ahead of the BAIC FOTON Africa Partners Conference. The centre will support dealer and service teams across African markets, using South Africa as a base for regional training.

The programme will combine classroom instruction with hands-on training in fault diagnosis and repair. It will also help dealers plan spare parts stock, standardise maintenance procedures and improve response times. For commercial fleets, those skills matter when a vehicle is off the road: diagnosing a fault correctly and having the right parts on hand can help shorten the time it takes to return a truck to service.

“For a fleet operator, a truck waiting for a diagnosis or a part is a truck that cannot earn revenue,” says Wu Zongtian, President of BAIC FOTON International. “The centre will give our dealer teams practical training on the vehicles they service, so they can diagnose faults with greater confidence and get customers back on the road sooner.”

The 900 m² facility is split equally between classroom and practical training space. Its two classrooms seat 80 and 24 people respectively. The workshop has five dedicated training areas covering complete vehicles, engines, transmissions, electrical and electronic systems, and new energy vehicles.

The centre opens in an economy where vehicle manufacturing and support are already significant. According to naamsa’s 2026 Automotive Trade Manual, the broader automotive industry accounted for 5.2% of South Africa’s GDP in 2025, and vehicle and component manufacturing generated 23.8% of domestic manufacturing value added. The centre extends BAIC FOTON’s localisation work into the skills needed to support vehicles throughout their working lives.

The regional centre builds on nearly 100 specialist training sessions BAIC FOTON held across its global markets from the start of 2026 to the opening. The South African facility gives African dealer teams a dedicated base for training across different vehicle types and service roles. Together with the establishment of local vehicle manufacturing in Gqeberha, the training centre underscores BAIC FOTON’s long-term commitment to the automotive industry in South Africa and across the continent.

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The World’s Largest Man-Made Urban Forest

One of the most surprising facts about Johannesburg is its status as a “green” city. When the first settlers arrived, the Highveld was a barren, treeless grassland (savannah). To support the mining industry, millions of trees were imported and planted to provide timber for mine underground supports. Fast forward to the present day, and Johannesburg is widely considered the largest man-made urban forest in the world.

There are an estimated 10 million trees within the city limits. This includes 1.2 million trees on sidewalks and in parks, and over 4.8 million in private gardens. This forest is so dense that satellite images of the northern suburbs often resemble a tropical rainforest. The most iconic of these trees is the Jacaranda, which was imported from South America in the early 20th century. Every October and November, the city turns a vibrant shade of purple as thousands of Jacarandas bloom simultaneously. However, this “forest” also highlights the city’s historical inequality; during the Apartheid era, trees were predominantly planted in wealthy white suburbs, leaving townships like Soweto as dusty plains. In the last two decades, “Greening Soweto” initiatives have seen hundreds of thousands of trees planted to bridge this “green divide,” emphasizing the role of urban forestry in social justice and climate cooling.