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South African market leader Toyota is cautiously optimistic about the year ahead for the new vehicle industry as a whole.

Speaking at the companys State of the Motor Industry SOMI event held in Midrand on Thursday, Toyota SA CEO Andrew Kirby predicted that the market would return to pre-pandemic levels in 2025.

Kirby said the biggest driver of sales would be interest rates and although the most recent Consumer Price Inflation CPI figures are encouraging, the weaker rand seen in January is an inflationary risk that could impact future rate decisions.

We need substantial changes in interest rates to drive sales. So what makes this year very difficult to forecast is trying to put a peg in the ground as to how much of a reduction in interest rates well actually experience, and specifically in the first six months of the year, Kirby said.

Its going to take customers a while to get out of their financial predicaments, but if that could happen sooner rather than later, we could see numbers maybe even a bit bigger than our current projections suggest.