AT A CROSSROADS: South Africa’ s automotive component sector can turn setbacks into OPPORTUNITIES
Leaders urged amicable trade, diversification, and localisation at
NAACAM Show 2025, says NAACAM CEO, Renai Moothilal.
South Africa’ s automotive industry stands at a pivotal moment. The engine of South African industrial growth, the sector is now grappling with a convergence of pressures: punitive tariffs from the United States, weakening competitiveness, rising imports, and crumbling domestic infrastructure. These headwinds threaten jobs, investments, and weaken the industry’ s role as a pillar of the economy, contributing more than 5 % to GDP and nearly a quarter of manufacturing output.
Yet the message from this year’ s NAACAM Show 2025, hosted in partnership with the AIDC Eastern Cape in Nelson Mandela Bay, was clear: while the challenges are severe, the path forward lies in localisation, diversification, digitalisation, decarbonisation and bold investment in the technologies and skills of the future.
The most immediate threat remains the US trade dispute. Since April, Washington has imposed 25 % tariffs on South African vehicles and automotive components. The impact has been severe. Vehicle exports to the US
WORDS IN ACTION 18 SEPTEMBER 2025