Will we ever cotton on?

As Ebrahim Patel ploughs on, recasting South African industry in his own image, good news stories on the ground are hard to find and one of the minister of trade, industry and competition’s frequently used weapons in his drive to promote localisation and import substitution, the Industrial Development Corporation, reported losses of R3.8bn last year. That’s a big number and testament to the quality of companies that its political masters (Patel) is driving it to invest in. In this edition of Podcasts from the Edge Peter Bruce talks to Nick Steen, a rock- hard former CEO with long, bittersweet experience in the local textiles industry that Patel is determined to protect. Do we have a future in textiles? Steen says we do, but not the way Patel imagines it…