The move by trade, industry & competition minister Parks Tau to raise the merger notification thresholds is a big step forward in creating a more investor-friendly merger control regime in South Africa.In deal-making, the fewer notifications the Competition Commission has to contend with the better. The move by Tau, the first time in a decade thresholds and filing fees were last increased, frees the competition authorities to concentrate their limited resources on complex, high-impact deals that pose genuine risks to market competition.The new thresholds are part of recent moves by the department to foster a more investor-friendly merger control regime in South Africa, including the various guidelines published to clarify the commission’s approach to internal restructurings, indivisible transactions and pre-merger consultations between the merger parties and authorities.An engaged department bodes well for economic growth, attracting investments to the country and creating much-needed jobs. The higher thresholds enable greater focus on larger transactions, which contribute more to economic growth and anticompetitive conduct generally — signalling to investors that efforts are being made to reduce unnecessary regulatory red tape while ensuring a more competitive market.The commission’s research indicates that the revised thresholds can materially reduce merger notifications without compromising competition or public interest enforcement, thereby improving the efficiency of the merger control regime.The research further shows that a lower volume of routine filings will enable the commission to direct specialist resources to more complex mergers — a move that will strengthen the quality and timeliness of assessments where risks to competition and the public interest are most pronouncedHowever, the real test for the Competition Commission is what it will do with the extra capacity it now has.The capacity must lead to speeding up large merger approvals. Several CEOs have over the years raised concerns about the time it took for competition authorities to approve deals and the friction costs that accompany the delays.For example, it took almost four years for Vodacom to officially secure approval for its Maziv fibre deal, first proposed in November 2021. The transaction officially cleared all final regulatory hurdles in late November 2025 after a lengthy appeals process, having initially been rejected by both the Competition Commission and the Competition Tribunal.This must be the exception rather than the norm. The endgame is to have a competition regime that has a more pragmatic, commercially aware approach to the application of public-interest considerations ― aware of the need to balance objectives with economic growth and investor confidence.However, the reforms in merger notifications will not on their own stimulate economic growth. South Africa needs a more coherent industrial policy and empowerment regulations to draw in foreign direct investment and reindustrialise the economy.It is in this regard that a transparent, robust debate that recognises the need to redress the injustices of the past as demanded by the constitution must be heard on transformation.The proposed new regulations overhauling procurement regulations present such an opportunity. The regulations contain much that is positive, such as better tools to tackle organised crime in procurement and value for money assessed across the life cycle rather than price alone.However, as we have seen from criticism by Business Leadership South Africa, there are points of serious contention in the draft regulations that need sober heads to prevail without compromising economic growth and the need for transformation.This can no longer be an elephant in the room or a matter settled by the judiciary, but rather a matter that the political leadership must deal with and have the buy-in of the totality of society. The moves to reform the competition regime and the logistics and energy sector give hope that, if the social partners put their heads to it, we have an opportunity to resolve many bottlenecks to economic growth.