SEIFSA APPLAUDS ESTABLISHMNENT OF DTIC INDUSTRIALISATION THINK TANK BUT DISAPPOINTED BY NO STEEL INDUSTRY REPRESENTATION

SEIFSA applauds the establishment of an Industrialisation Think Tank housed in the Department of Trade Industry and Competition (DTIC) but is concerned by the absence of representatives from the steel industry.

We congratulate the appointment of representatives from across the political, business and research spectrum and look forward to their contribution in formulating and recommending policies to reignite the economy focusing on industrialisation, re-industrialisation and economic transformation.

South Africa is grappling with low growth, high unemployment, widening inequality, entrenched poverty and poor and failing infrastructure. The steel industry is critical in the reconstruction and recovery plan for the South African economy, particularly in the manufacturing, mining, construction, engineering and transportation sectors, which are at the centre of industrialisation, localisation and beneficiation programmes.

The country has been hailed for coming up with impressive policies to reignite the economy, but equally criticised for failing to implement them to transform one of the continents largest and most industrialised economies. Minister Parks Tau has established the Industrialisation Think Tank with a broad mandate to formulate recommendations on manufacturing plans with the aim of advising and influencing governments industrialisation policies over the seventh administration.

SEIFSA has for long been advocating that for the economy to grow the steel sector must survive. South Africa’s steel sector is the bedrock of the country’s supply chains, central to the country’s economic potential and resilience. At a time, such as the present, of geopolitical turbulence the contributions of the homegrown and local steel sector must become central to South Africa’s industrial policy. The absence of direct steel representatives, particularly leaders of industry and industrialists, who have an intimate and hard-earned understanding of what needs to be done and what needs to be fixed is disappointing.