Patel highlights challenges faced by South African manufacturers, notes government efforts

DONNA SLATER

TO boost productivity in South Africa, four key business factors need urgent and significant attention, namely increasing energy security, increasing government spending on infrastructure projects, ensuring compliance with local procurement policies and using South Africa’s competitive advantage to the benefit of local businesses, Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Ebrahim Patel has said.

Speaking at the Proudly South Africa Buy Local Summit on March 27, he admitted that, although “energy has become now the central preoccupation of the country”, energy availability is critical to localisation and to drive industrialisation.

“Our success in assuming a localisation effort is going to be dependent on the speed with which we are able to bring enormous quantities of additional energy into our grid,” said Patel.

The second major obstacle in jobs creation and government contribution to gross domestic product was slow movement in getting major infrastructure projects off the ground – spending on which peaked in 2014.

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