EVENTS AND EXHIBITIONS
fantastic platform to enable that. It was an amazing show
and provided the local market with great exposure,” says
visitor Eugene Gopaul from GEEZ Imports & Exports.
“The expo was the culmination of a vision that the South
African Capital Equipment Export Council (SACEEC) has
nurtured for a number of years. We fully believe that the
time has come for local manufacturing to take centre stage
by capturing a large slice of the international pie, together
with replacing imported products with local alternatives,”
says Eric Bruggeman, CEO at SACEEC.
In his presentation at the free-to-attend SAIMechE
Seminar Theatre, Bruggeman emphasised that South
African manufacturers need to learn to market their
strengths through entrepreneurship, aftersales service,
innovation, 4IR, as well as finding the right B-BBEE partners
and technology partners. “We can no longer work in
isolation. This is a team effort, if you will, and requires full
participation and dedication from all stakeholders.”
This sentiment was echoed by Steve Jardine of
Recapitalise, who said,“Re-industrialisation of South Africa
takes team work and skill to access markets and achieve
the levels of local content desired. It takes thousands
of entities working together, although independently, to
achieve an increase in productive outputs and sustainable
growth across the economy.”
“Perhaps the best way to describe this coming together
and supporting local efforts, instead of importing goods
which are often inferior to the local counterparts, is ‘ubuntu’.
This all-encompassing Nguni word typifies the African way
of doing business and is the perfect descriptor for the need
to support local businesses. We firmly believe that this first
Local Manufacturing Expo has planted the seed of working
together to keep the country’s money in the country instead
of spending it on imported goods,” says Hefer.
In addition to the wide array of locally manufactured
products and local services showcased at the Expo,
visitors enjoyed 12 informative seminar sessions, the
hands-on Skills Development Zone hosted by the Artisan
Training Institute (ATI), and the SA Mining Supply Chain
Conference and Workshop, which had 112 delegates
over two days. The conference and workshop fostered
positive interaction and produced a number of tangible
goals. According to Ronnel Yankana of the Mandela Mining
Precinct these included the fact that local industry requires
robust coordination to capitalise on the opportunities
behind the Mining Charter 3 for the development of
local content and localising our supply chain. “This
would encourage import displacement and enhance our
competitiveness through:
• Building strong supply chain clusters;
• Technology and R&D investments;
• Implementing coding for standards, inventory and
supply chain control;
• Understanding the needs and requirements from the
end users (mines); and
• Investigating and developing funding vehicles to assist
local players.
In addition, mechanisation and automation could be jobs
neutral and create more jobs if the mining-supply chain
developed locally.”
www.equipmentandhire.co.za
SEPTEMBER 2019
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