The Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of Southern Africa (SEIFSA) says it applauds the establishment of an Industrialisation Think Tank housed in the Department of Trade Industry and Competition (DTIC) but it is concerned by the absence of representatives from the steel industry.
The formation of this initiative follows a sectoral engagement between Minister Parks Tau and the metals and engineering sector in late 2024 which sought to provide a platform wherein the Ministry and industry could come together to develop a way forward to arrest the rapid decline in the sector’s performance.
“We congratulate the appointment of representatives from across the political, business, and research spectrum and we look forward to their contribution in formulating and recommending policies to reignite the economy focusing on industrialisation, re-industrialisation, and economic transformation,” notes the federation.
“South Africa is grappling with low growth, high unemployment, widening inequality, entrenched poverty, and poor, 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,” notes SEIFSA.
In early January 2025, ArcelorMittal SA announced that it is mothballing its long-steel operations at its Newcastle Works, Vereeniging Works, and its structural subsidiary, AMRAS, following its “year-long plea for help to government having been unsuccessful.” SEIFSA described this as a “profound policy failure”.