Panel: Manufacturing Quo Vadis

Hindsight, they say, is 20/20 vision. This year, being 2020, it turned out to be truer than ever before. For investors, and all of us really, there was so much about this year that was unpredictable, surprising and shocking. As we use this time to reflect on the impact of Covid 19 on South Africa this year, the aftershocks are still reverberating through the manufacturing sector. The sector was on its knees before Covid struck due to a range of factors from loadshedding to steel input costs, disagreements on how to pursue localisation, issues around competitiveness and dealing with leaky customs…one just has to drive through the former industrial belts of the East Rand and Vereeniging to see where we’ve gone from conveyor belt to rust belt. But the manufacturing sector is high on the government’s agenda for the economic rebuild, and the contribution it could make towards creating sustainable jobs is at least appreciated. Whether we can all agree on how to achieve that remains to be seen. Michael Avery hosts Philippa Rodseth, Executive Director of the Manufacturing Circle, Gerhard Papenfus, Chief Executive of the National Employers Association of South Africa & Nicolette Skjoldhammer, Managing Director of Betterect, about the year that was and the outlook for the local manufacturing sector.