state of the stainless steel nation
SA Stainless Stands at a Pivotal Point South Africa’s stainless steel industry is at a critical juncture. After years of deindustrialisation, rising imports and constrained domestic demand, renewed calls for reindustrialisation have sharpened focus on rebuilding local capacity. In this latest State of the Stainless Steel Nation feature, Sassda Executive Director Michel Basson outlines the challenges facing the value chain, from policy gaps to structural barriers, while highlighting the sector’s resilience. With the right investment, enforcement and incentives, he believes the industry can become a significant international force…
How would you characterise the current state of South Africa’s stainless steel industry in the context of renewed calls for reindustrialisation? Are we seeing tangible progress in rebuilding local manufacturing capacity? Over the past two decades, the South African economy has experienced a decline in manufacturing capacity and competitiveness across virtually all sectors. It is well known that the South African metals and engineering sector is facing a crisis of historic proportions, as years of low capital expenditure, declining demand and policy gaps have accelerated deindustrialisation, eroding the country’s productive base. Upstream, AMSA has retrenched nearly half of its local workforce, with destructive effects influencing job security for more than 293 000 people in the downstream value chain, according to Seifsa. In the stainless steel sector, the industry has experienced a similar negative trend, with small and medium enterprises finding it increasingly difficult to survive.
This is concerning, as the real value add in the supply chain takes place through conversion in these companies. This is also where the core of job creation lies. Industry stakeholders do not believe that current government policies are aligned with industrial priorities and that policies should be redesigned to place emphasis on protecting the local manufacturing sector. Import regulations, including duties, should be properly enforced to prevent the dumping of low-quality and subsidised products in South Africa. In many cases, adequate rules are in place, but they are not being enforced. At the same time, a structured national approach to penetrate and capture African markets should be driven jointly by the private sector and government. This would create increased demand for South African products, resulting in higher volumes that can improve global competitiveness. Many in the industry believe that specific and targeted incentives should be introduced to support manufacturing in particular sectors. This would encourage competitiveness through investment in technology, skills and capital.
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Issue 1 – 2026
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