KwaZulu–Natal Premier Senzo Mchunu has acknowledged that a lot of work needs to be done if the South African manufacturing industry is to grow and be competitive and sustainable.

“We all need to seek to ensure that the environment is characterised by more efficiency and effectiveness,” he said at the opening of the KwaZulu-Natal Manufacturing Indaba, in Durban, on Tuesday.

He added that government needed to look into issues such as bureaucracy and the negative effect this had on industry and needed to stay in touch with the sector to better deal with impediments and frustrations.

The Premier further said government needed to speed up its response to pertinent questions from investors that covered issues such as procurement and land availability. It also had to do more in terms of skills development to support the manufacturing industry, as well as to deal with labour issues.

Mchunu stated that the manufacturing industry could grow if all stakeholders shared ideas and suggested that industry put its needs on the table “without fear or favour”. 

The most important thing, he stressed, was that expanding manufacturing meant job creation.

“Our most serious problems are poverty, inequality and unemployment. But you may as well focus just on one – unemployment. That’s why the contribution of this sector is valuable,” he said.

Tackling unemployment through growing the manufacturing sector was also a priority for Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) chief director of industrial procurement Dr Tebogo Makube.

Noting that manufacturing’s contribution to gross domestic product was falling, while that of financial services, wholesale and government services was increasing, he warned that these were important but not tradable sectors. They also did not absorb the largely unskilled group that constitutes the unemployed in South Africa.

“For a country like South Africa with a low level of education, manufacturing is important because the labour absorption rate is high. We don’t have a choice but to support manufacturing because there are so many multipliers,” he told delegates.

Makube further expressed concern about import leakage, which was on the increase. He said the importance of localisation should not be underestimated and called on government departments to adhere to localisation stipulations when procuring goods.

When it came to dumping and unrealistically priced imports, he said the DTI knew that it had to intervene by using tariffs or other industrial policy to support sectors that were in distress.