state of the stainless steel nation
The battle to revive domestic manufacturing
To mitigate these effects, industry stakeholders have been calling for a well considered and all encompassing metals sector industrial policy. In 2018 the Steel Master Plan was devised to address these issues as a strategy to promote local production, increase demand, and encourage investment in the stainless steel industry. Unfortunately, this initiative, albeit strongly supported and driven by the private sector, is currently suffering from a severe lack of forward momentum. In light of this, some of the industry-related, private sector partners are forging ahead with some good initiatives, not willing to wait longer for direction from government and the relevant ministers. The industrial partnerships and cooperation between private sector entities contributes vastly to the electricity supply issues of the past few years. Sassda believes that the same can be attained in the stainless steel sector when we surround ourselves with likeminded peer organisations with a will and positive attitude to make things work in South Africa. This attitude seems to be working, since the local consumption of stainless steel that was locally converted and added value to, has grown substantially with 53% in 2024 after a 16% decline in 2023. This is slowly putting the local stainless steel industry on a path of recovery after more than a decade of steady decline. This is especially noteworthy since local production is still under constraints due to capped exports to the EU. Some of the import/export statistics for 2024 illustrates some of the areas that can be developed for local manufacturing. Not only finished goods, but semi-finished goods and products that can be seen as secondary product such as tube, pipe and other long products.
the imported product due to pricing issues. Given a level playing field, these local producers could be competitive with other global competitors. Unfortunately, the playing field is not level at all. When the pricing of imported product is analysed, it becomes clear that the local producers compete against subsidised product from abroad. This trend has been reported to dtic, including ITAC. Unfortunately, there seems to be an atmosphere of general reluctance to address these critical issues for a major foreign currency generator in our industry, and the problem gets kicked around with no solution in sight.
Most of the welded tube made in South Africa is utilised in application such as the auto-industry, food processing and structural. The export of tube is mainly by the auto-industry in the form of exhaust components and the like. The South African auto industry is highly competitive and makes use of modern technology. However, it still cannot compete against
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Issue 1 – 2025
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