{"id":877649,"date":"2026-10-03T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=877649"},"modified":"2026-10-02T16:53:24","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T14:53:24","slug":"another-sign-of-collapse-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business-opinion\/877649\/another-sign-of-collapse-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Another sign of collapse in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The increase in calls on the government to impose tariffs or restrictions on imports is a sign of South Africa\u2019s weak local manufacturing base, which has deteriorated considerably over the past 15 years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This collapse is largely due to poor service delivery, port mismanagement, and crime, which discourage companies from investing in local manufacturing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the feedback from Donald MacKay, CEO of XA Global Trade Advisors, who commented<\/a> on South Africa\u2019s decision to abandon plans to introduce checks on certain Chinese imports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Parks Tau issued a directive in March to introduce a pre-export verification of conformity programme for certain unregulated Chinese imports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The programme was intended to take effect in October, but was withdrawn shortly before implementation following pushback from China, South Africa\u2019s largest trading partner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The proposed measures were aimed at protecting consumers and local businesses by ensuring that imported products met South African quality and safety standards before entering the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The products identified included aluminium cookware and cooking pots, hair relaxers, sanitary towels, office chairs and other goods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MacKay said the original plan was for the checks to take place in China before the goods were shipped to South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The products would then be assessed against South African standards, with goods that failed to comply being prevented from being shipped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, he said the bigger problem with the proposed system was that it appeared to single out China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MacKay explained that South Africa could impose standards on imported products, but those standards would have to apply equally to all trading partners and local producers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo if you have a standard, you have to apply it equally to all your trading partners and in fact to your domestic industry,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said this was likely to have contributed to the decision to abandon the plan, although the government has not publicly confirmed that this was the reason.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fix the fundamentals<\/h2>\n\n\n
\n
\"\"<\/a>
Donald MacKay, CEO of XA Global Trade Advisors<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

He said South Africa could introduce compulsory standards for particular products, but these would need to be applied fairly to both imports and domestic production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf they did want to implement it, they would have to do it the proper way,\u201d he said, pointing to compulsory standards already applied to products such as cement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under such a system, every country exporting cement to South Africa would have to meet the same standard, while South African cement producers would also be required to comply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The abandoned programme also raised questions about South Africa\u2019s trade deficit with China. However, MacKay said restricting imports would do little to address the underlying imbalance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa exports large quantities of minerals to China, while importing higher-value manufactured goods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSomewhere around 70% to 75% of what we export to China is simply minerals,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The result is that South Africa exports raw materials while importing finished products, a pattern MacKay linked directly to the deterioration of the domestic manufacturing base.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is not even going to put a dent into that sort of situation because South Africa\u2019s whole manufacturing infrastructure has largely collapsed in the last 15 or so years,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MacKay said reversing this trend would require South Africa to address the underlying reasons companies are reluctant to manufacture locally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He pointed to Eskom, dysfunctional ports and crime as some of the structural problems facing businesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFixing the fundamentals of why our manufacturing sector has collapsed would be necessary to change the country\u2019s trade position,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd then when you look at that, you kind of go, okay, that is why on manufactured goods, we perpetually run a trade deficit with most of the world, for that matter,\u201d MacKay said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The increase in calls on the government to impose tariffs or restrictions on imports is a sign of South Africa\u2019s weak local manufacturing base, which has deteriorated considerably over the past 15 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":840050,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2106353840584843285","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2225147144972351","_sma_instagram_post_id":"18005839815003490","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[853,18853,23622],"class_list":["post-877649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-opinion","tag-south-africa","tag-trade","tag-xa-global-trade-advisors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/92"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=877649"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":877714,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877649\/revisions\/877714"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/840050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=877649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=877649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=877649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}