Motor Industry Association Chief Executive David Crawford says as we head towards a Covid-19 alert level 3 on Tuesday 28 April, Distributors of new vehicles and their franchised dealerships are carefully preparing to re-open for business.
In a Covid-19 constrained world, operating at Level 3 will not be business as usual, it is a careful step towards restarting businesses that have put in place adequate steps to limit the transmission of Covid-19. This will require operating in a customer contactless manner, while providing a Covid-19 free safe working environment for employees.
Distributors and their franchised dealer network are preparing their businesses to achieve non-contact operations to:
- Operate their workshops with the necessary sanitation, distancing, and other health requirements
- Retail new vehicles without face to face customer contact throughout the sale and delivery process and to ensure vehicles are properly sanitised.
The Motor Industry Association endorses the Government’s position that New Zealand needed to shut down to save lives, and that moving to Level 3 remains a necessarily constrained way of operating our businesses. Equally, in terms of imports, the new vehicle sector is second only to the importation of oil in its contribution towards the New Zealand’s GDP. Getting these businesses operating again in a safe way is vital to allowing New Zealand’s economy to begin to recover.
While we expect to provide some servicing under Alert Level 3, it may not be possible to respond immediately to all requests. We ask the public to be understanding if a request to service or repair your vehicle during this time is not possible or is deferred. The sooner we can stop the spread of the virus the sooner New Zealand can fully reopen for business.
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