https://www.engineeringnews.co.za

On-The-Air (03/07/2015)

safm3july2015

3rd July 2015

By: Martin Creamer

Creamer Media Editor

  

Font size: - +

Every Friday morning, SAfm’s AMLive’s radio anchor Sakina Kamwendo speaks to Martin Creamer, publishing editor of Engineering News and Mining Weekly.  Reported here is this Friday’s At the Coalface transcript:

Kamwendo: Strong calls were made at high level this week for government and business to work together to end the current stagnation of the South African economy.

Creamer: I think it is becoming very serious. You can see the furrows beginning to go into the brows of people at policy discussions, one held at high level this week. Ben Turok didn’t mince his words. The former MP said that we must realise that we are in a crisis. Don't tell us that we are growing at 1.3% because we are not growing at 1.3% if you put the population growth in, then we are growing at 0%. Lets look at ourselves and start getting this economy going, because he says our three main pillars are stagnating. Mining, manufacturing and agriculture are stagnating because we are in a policy doldrums, because of the trust deficit between government and business. He comes from way back where he was in the 1956 Rivonia Treason Trial situation. He was one of the authors of the Freedom Charter’s economic sectors and is saying we have to get rid of ideological baggage and sit together and work with our strengths and have mutual respect and understanding, as well as policies that encourage business to move. Analyst Clive Ramathibela was there and he was saying look at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, I see it rallying everyday. But Turok was saying don't look at the stock exchange, look at the real economy, because the stock exchange is boosted by all this quantitative easing around the world and not reflecting the exact position. Then there was also Mike Rossouw at a summit the next day saying that business has now got to step up and start being honest. They have got to tell government what policy works and doesn’t work and not just say we are going to invest outside the country. That was one of the things that Turok said we are starting to see that there is more investment from South African companies outside the country then inside the country. When you look at the foreign direct investment coming in, it is less then what South Africans are investing outside. This he says is a very dangerous situation. If you look at the production trajectories they are pathetic and dangerous. Again with Rossouw, who compared us to South Korea. In the 60s, we were twice as healthy as South Korea, which has no minerals and metals. Now, we only have a quarter of that wealth, and we have got all the metals and minerals. He is saying get down and do this more efficiently and we can get ahead of the game again. But, we need policy and people are talking about policy doldrums and the need for working together, business and government on policy otherwise we continue to have the stagflation, which is really dangerous, because you have got stagnation with inflation.

Kamwendo: South Africans and Americans are working together brilliantly to boost the local content of locomotives.

Creamer: This is a case study where business and government can work together. We see a foreign company, General Electric, coming in and doing a really good job. If you take an example of how they have meshed with the State-owned Transnet and particularly Transnet Engineering at Koedoespoort and how they have churned out those locomotives. There are 143 that have gone with 35% local content and now in six days time they are moving to the next phase with another 233 locomotives, but this time with a 55% local content. This is the sort of partnership that we need. Spawned are 20 black entrepreneurs who are now supplying that, 95 people going over to America for training and coming back. We are preserving 9 000 jobs with this activity in South Africa and revitalising our rail, which is so important. Then the big ‘e’ comes up, they can start exporting and you see them exporting. It is so important that the Secretary of Transport for the United States Anthony Foxx came out and he said that this is really a good partnership. In fact we are using it as a case study around the world. I don’t believe it is big enough, we can make this five times bigger quite easily, particularly with Africa growing as well and the export potential. So let’s up our game together and move on the local content and partnership.  

Kamwendo: The local content of South Africa’s taxis has been boosted sky high through a R550-million investment.

Creamer: This has come from Toyota, which has put up a revamped taxi plant. It has increased the local content again. Instead of only 46 of the components of our taxis being local, there is now 107 components. So again, it is local content where individual companies start coming around and they supply South Africa and they put in this new production line. We know Toyota stopped doing this, but getting round again they relooked at it and found that this is a business proposition with an export potential into Africa. We can see in Durban there used to be a semi-knocked-down situation is now completely knocked down, which means that there are more people involved in South Africa with more South African content and again a partnership we see there with roof linings and harnesses and exhaust systems being made here, for our taxis.

Kamwendo: Thanks very much. Martin Creamer is publishing editor of Engineering News and Mining Weekly, he’ll be back with us at the same time next week.

 

Edited by Creamer Media Reporter

Comments

Showroom

Magni SA
Magni SA

Magni SA is committed to developing the safest Telehandlers available to our customers for underground and surface mining, construction, forestry,...

VISIT SHOWROOM 
John Thompson
John Thompson

John Thompson, the leader in energy and environmental solutions through value engineering and innovation, provides the following: design, engineer,...

VISIT SHOWROOM 

Latest Multimedia

sponsored by

Photo of Martin Creamer
On-The-Air (15/03/2024)
15th March 2024 By: Martin Creamer

Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):

Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format

Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):

All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.

Already a subscriber?

Forgotten your password?

MAGAZINE & ONLINE

SUBSCRIBE

RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA

SUBSCRIBE

CORPORATE PACKAGES

CLICK FOR A QUOTATION







sq:0.084 0.146s - 155pq - 2rq
Subscribe Now