South Africa’s manufacturing industry can either sit and hope that things get better in the face of current tough economic conditions or it can work to find ways of revitalising the sector, Trade and Industry Minister Dr Rob Davies said on Thursday.
Speaking at the Austrian Business Chamber, in Sandton, on Wednesday, the Minister noted that international companies still displayed “very strong faith” in the South African economy and were willing to invest.
“This is not the time to postpone manufacturing, but to persevere and find ways to mitigate the challenges,” he said, highlighting that, besides South Africa, Australia and Canada had also been hard hit by the waning commodities sector cycle.
“Looking at the holistic performance of the manufacturing sector, divided into subsectors, many other parts of manufacturing continue on a steady growth path,” said Davies.
He highlighted that South Africa, through its Industrial Policy Action Plan (IPAP), had paved a way and provided direction in terms of where it needed to go to achieve industrialisation.
Davies added that the country had come out better off during the global economic crisis with the IPAP, which was introduced in 2009, than it would have without it.
The Minister cited the example of the textile industry, which he said was rapidly declining with many negative commentators predicting that the sector, despite the job growth potential, was going to collapse.
“We changed our incentive schemes and many companies took them up. We brought in retailers such as Foschini, which created 6 000 jobs in a sector that was said to be doomed,” he added.