Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition, Parks Tau, delivered his department's Budget Vote in Parliament in May.
There is something quietly significant about the moment we are living through, a moment when the direction of South Africa's industrial policy is not merely being debated but actively being shaped, and when the people responsible for that shaping – government, business, labour, and communities – are largely pulling in the same direction. That alignment is fragile and must be nurtured, but it is real and deserves to be acknowledged.
When Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition Parks Tau delivered his Budget Vote earlier this year, the speech carried more than the usual ceremonial optimism of parliamentary occasions. It offered evidence of a department that understands the complexity of the task before it: that manufacturing is not simply an economic input but a social architecture, a sector that creates permanent, decent-wage employment, builds skills across generations, and provides the structural backbone without which no economy can truly call itself competitive. The announcement that R86.6 billion in locally manufactured goods and services had been procured in the current cycle, with a R100 billion target set for this financial year, is a meaningful marker of intent. As SATMC, we stand behind that ambition and want to see it achieved.
