INSIGHT
DRIVING LOCAL INTO 2019
By Tarren Bolton
T
he driving force behind capturing this growth
opportunity is the South African Capital Equipment
Export Council (SACEEC). Plant Equipment & Hire
met with Eric Bruggeman, CEO at SACEEC, to discuss
his insights.
According to Bruggeman, part of the Council’s mandate is
to organise outward selling and inward buying missions — to
facilitate local growth potential and assist companies to grow
their businesses through exporting. SACEEC is a public-private
partnership with the Department of Trade and Industry (dti).
Members have to be local South African manufacturers, have
to be a registered company in South Africa, and have to have
at least 70% local content.
Support from within
Bruggeman explains, “We run clusters — a group of
companies — such as a mineral processing cluster, a
mining supply cluster, and so on. The idea is that all local
manufacturers that fall into the same cluster can form a
kind of support structure.” Bruggeman maintains that this
allows for common problems and concerns to be identified
and addressed, and SACEEC helps to solve these issues.
This means that SACEEC spends a lot of time focusing on
South Africa itself — right here at home, where currently the
market is pretty much dead. And the focus is on support. “For
example, SACEEC has a very good global mining network, so
we are aware of what is happening where and where all the
expansions are, and we open up these avenues of opportunity
for our members to sell their equipment around the world
and in Africa,” he says. Members who have been exporting
have been doing very well. However, manufacturers who, in
the past, hadn’t exported much are now trying to expand their
export market.
“It is critical for the sustainability of local manufacturing
operations that they aggressively pursue opportunities to
increase their market share. Not only is this relevant to
their increased permeation of the overseas market, but
furthermore, they need to capture market share that is
currently being monopolised by importers. Recent statistics
indicate that South Africa currently imports products to the
value of a staggering USD83-billion. If we were able to shift
this demand to the local manufacturing sector, we could
realistically create 1.3 million jobs,” says Bruggeman.
Bruggeman believes that localisation can turn things around
for South Africa, and that it starts with the municipalities,
state-owned companies, and general private-owned
businesses supporting local industry. “We have to somehow
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JANUARY 2019
Specialised Exhibitions
While South African manufacturers are lamenting the woes of a tough economic climate, there is
still enormous potential to increase their market share both locally and internationally.
Eric Bruggeman, CEO at SACEEC, speaking at the launch event
for the Local Manufacturing Expo, which took place at the JHB
Expo Centre in 2017.
reduce the imports, and move into a positive GDP,”
says Bruggeman.
Showcasing local manufacturers
As part of an interactive drive to promote localisation, SACEEC
is committed to showcasing southern Africa’s manufacturing
capabilities across a wide variety of industry sectors, including
mining, environmental control and drilling, digging, cutting,
and earthmoving. “The result is the inaugural Local Southern
African Manufacturing Expo (LME) being held at the Expo
Centre, Nasrec, from 21 to 23 May 2019,” says Bruggeman.
The local expo is a first of its kind, and supported by the dti
and Minerals Council South Africa, the platform will position
hundreds of leading local manufacturers to demonstrate
that the power of local manufacturing is the key to unlocking
vast economic empowerment, growth, development, and
investment.
“It cannot be stressed enough that for South African
industries to grow and, in turn, put back into the community
in the form of job creation, state-owned companies need to
buy local. A certain amount of tax has to be returned to, and
reinvested in, the domestic economy. Infrastructure depends
on state-owned buy-in in order to survive. South Africa cannot
rely on investments because we are not exactly investor-
friendly right now,” says Bruggeman.
He explains that entrepreneurs and overseas investors
do business where it’s ‘clean and easy’, and South Africa is
just too complicated right now with issues like land reform
and state capture. “We are in quite a desperate situation,
and the only way out is to focus on localisation. Bottom line:
municipalities have to buy local support, local industry, and
in doing so, tick all the relevant compliance boxes,”
concludes Bruggeman. ■
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