The government was unlikely to provide any funding beyond budgeted amounts to the vehicle industry, Deputy Trade and Industry Minister Thandi Tobias-Pokolo said.

This was her response after a conference had been told on Wednesday that the industry — particularly component makers but also some vehicle manufacturers — needed state aid.

Solutions had to be found in the next two years or the industry could cease to exist in the next seven or eight years, National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of SA (Naamsa) president David Powels said.

Opening the second day of the Automotive Week conference in Port Elizabeth, Tobias-Pokolo said the government remained committed to the motor industry as a key sector in its industrialisation strategy. The Vision 2020 strategy planned for the country to produce more than 1.2 million cars a year by then.

But Vision 2020 had to be reviewed in the light of the global economic crisis. Higher education should be involved in such a review too, she said, as technological developments and innovative solutions had to be considered in what she described as a "paradigm shift" in circumstances.

Unlike the US, Europe and Brazil, which had billions of dollars to help their vehicle sectors — the government did not have such extra money.

Tobias-Pokolo said the R6-billion in Department of Trade and Industry funding to assist distressed companies in the car industry over the next two years would remain, with about R1-bilion of that in the process of being allocated.

Powels had said the "honeymoon period after the miraculous transformation" of SA was about to end. To survive, the industry had to become world competitive in a short time.

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