South Africa has significantly exceeded key investment targets, with industrial investment reaching more than R31 billion against a R10 billion target and local procurement totalling R86 billion against a R50 billion target.
This is according to Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Parks Tau, who presented the department’s Annual Report for the 2025/2026 financial year to the Portfolio Committee on Trade, Industry and Competition on Wednesday.
The report highlighted South Africa’s strong performance against investment and export targets, while also identifying operational bottlenecks and audit challenges.
During the reporting period, global exports reached R142 billion against a R120 billion target, while continental exports reached R146 billion and small, medium, and micro enterprises (SMMEs) exports reached R764 billion.
“While facing significant headwinds, the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (the dtic) is shifting from crisis management to implementing a focused industrial development strategy.
“The goal is to move away from merely producing paper documents toward measuring actual outcomes for the South African economy. The revised industrial strategy that mainly focuses on Special Economic Zones and industry-specific Industrial Parks is an example of such,” Tau said.
Tau said the dtic is working to diversify markets through trade preferences with the European Union (EU), the Southern African Development Community (SADC), BRICS Plus, the United States of America (USA), the United Kingdom (UK) and the rest of the continent.
“Efforts are being made to strengthen export promotion for manufacturing, including small, medium, and micro enterprises (SMMEs) and black-owned enterprises. The dtic Group aims to achieve targets despite global uncertainty, amid conflicts in Europe and the Middle East, and attacks on rule-based trade structures,” Tau said.
The report highlighted sectoral and operational challenges, noting that manufacturing growth was slightly below the 0.5% target, at 0.4%.
Progress on Industrial Parks was also delayed by funding constraints, with only 10 of the 45 targeted parks receiving funding.
The Minister attributed the reduction in imports of rail and transport components to logistics challenges that require concessions to maintain operations in the short term.
Tau added that electric vehicle negotiations with the UK are ongoing because of concerns about domestic capacity and future investment interest.
“Significant progress is being made in sectors like automotive through the Automotive Master Plan, but other industries face external pressure. Poultry is facing increased US demand and quota issues related to five asks from the US.
“The steel sector is dealing with increased tariffs that match those of the EU, constraining market access,” Tau said.
The department’s expenditure was concentrated in several high-value categories. These included R9.1 billion for industrial incentives, of which R5 billion was successfully disbursed, and external programmes such as the Social Employment Fund, which received R1.3 billion. Spending also included R41 million in membership fees and various transfers to non-profit organisations.
The dtic further noted challenges relating to unqualified audits and the need to strengthen coordination with other government departments to align programmes. – SAnews.gov.za
