At the end of this month, the Southern Africa Stainless Steel Development Association (Sassda) will release its 2015 Buyer’s Guide, which it believes will be its most comprehensive buyer’s guide yet.

“During 2014, Sassda developed a new database, which is split into 38 product categories and 13 service categories, the names of which are designed to describe the market sector in which a product would be used,” says Sassda executive director John Tarboton.

The guide lists about 1 620 product lines, which cover the products and services of about 400 Sassda members. Tarboton mentions that, in 2014, the industry experienced a slight increase in terms of apparent-consumption statistics.

“Comparing 2013’s with 2014’s consumption statistics, there has been a slight increase in consumption of stainless steel products, as 2014 recorded a consumption of 186 454 t, compared with185 198 t in 2013,” he points out.

Tarboton adds that the association again expects to see a slight increase across sectors in this year’s consumption of stainless steel.

He highlights that Sassda’s expected growth increase is premised on the fact that more of its members are expanding into the rest of Africa, which has seen more exports into different African regions.

“Some of our fabricators, for example, are exporting up to 90% of their goods, with a considerable portion going into Africa. So there seems to be an uptake in terms of demand that is influencing this trend.”

While this is the case, Sassda board member Gary Crawford points out that China and European countries do pose a threat as they are also beginning to infil- trate the African market. As a result, South African exporting companies have to focus on other value differentiators, such as quality, logistics, flexibility and so on, so that their products have an advantage in Africa over their competitors.

However, Sassda market intelligence specialist Lesley Squires mentions that what African countries appreciate about South African companies exporting to them is the willingness to provide local people with skills and jobs through their brands. This puts South Africa at an advantage as companies are also catering to the socioeconomic needs of those countries while doing business.

Tarboton indicates that the processed food and beverages industry is a growing South African export sector and that this helps drive stainless steel demand in South Africa. In addition to this, the growth in the processing of raw food and vegetables is growing the demand for stainless steel food and beverage processing equipment in Africa and particularly into Ethiopia and Tanzania.

With Sassda forming part of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Export Council, Squires says, Sassda will take advantage of the DTI’s National Pavilion initiative – which showcases South African products at international fairs – by encouraging its members to exhibit at these fairs.

“To create more awareness and drive the export market, we will be representing our members in Zimbabwe in April, Zambia in May, Tanzania in July and Angola in August,” she states.

By using these platforms, Tarboton says, Sassda members who are not yet active in the African market are enabled to start exploring potential business markets within these African countries.

For this reason, the DTI is pushing us as associations to market companies that have not yet made their mark in Africa and to support their growth,” says Squires.

Owing to this, she highlights, the DTI put up R250 000 for the production of the Buyer’s Guide 2015 in order to support Sassda and its members.