Patel welcomes BFG investment

Friday, July 19, 2019

Trade and Industry Minister Ebrahim Patel on Friday welcomed the R50 million investment by BFG Africa Rail into an advanced manufacturing facility in Gauteng.

BFG Africa is a subsidiary of a multinational company in Bahrain specialising in manufacturing composite products and one of the top five global suppliers of advanced composite material.

The company has set up BFG Africa Rail in South Africa to supply composite products to the Passenger Rail Agency South Africa (PRASA).

Minister Patel said the investment will result in a state-of-the-art composite manufacturing facility which boasts improved engineering processes using advanced technologies.

The investment in Germiston will also include training that benefits skills development for workers that have been trained at the international operations, to ensure manufacturing efficiencies in the newly-established plant.

The advanced composite products coming out of this new factory will find applications in the rail, renewable, defence and other sectors.

The scale of the investment will enable the company to achieve production capacity that will meet South African requirements as well as exports into the Sub Saharan markets.

“The investment will also lead to new jobs being created and by the end of December 2019, will result in the full staff complement of 120, according to the company. The launch confirms the improving investment climate in South Africa and will contribute to President [Cyril] Ramaphosa’s investment mobilisation drive,” said the Department of Trade and Industry (dti).

Patel noted the investment is a positive step for localisation of component manufacturing.

The import substitution will lead to 76% of the components being built in South Africa at this plant.

This investment is also in line with the Industrial Policy Action Plan’s focus areas of leveraging the infrastructure roll-out to accelerate industrial capacity investment and localisation on the Industrial policy as part of the backbone to achieving transformation and inclusive industrialisation. –SAnews.gov.za