SOUTHERN African Development Community (Sadc) executive secretary Elias Magosi has called on member States to allow industry and businesses to lead and strategise for the region to fully industrialise as one of the four critical steps to achieve industrialisation.
In April 2015, Sadc adopted the Sadc Industrialisation Strategy and Roadmap to offer member States a plan to become fully industrialised and integrated as a bloc by 2063.
However, several years later, the region is still facing several bottlenecks preventing the region from achieving some of the steps listed in the SISR such as policy inconsistency and capital deficits.
Speaking during the 7th Sadc Industrialisation Week on Wednesday this week, Magosi said he considered the four steps “critical” to pursuing the ultimate realisation of the region’s industrialisation plan.
“They are certainly not exhaustive, but they can boost the industrialisation agenda in my view. First, member States should develop policies and regulations that actually and truly drive industrialisation, they must enable industry in the true sense of the word and not just simply talk about it,” he said.
“Second, a deliberate focus must be placed on the creation of and support to market access for those businesses and industries pursuing and leading the industrialisation effort. Real and meaningful access to markets is the oxygen that these businesses need to survive and also to achieve scale.”
He said without it, businesses would suffocate and perish.
“As they say ‘charity begins at home’ in the member States themselves, I believe, in my view, we must, and I must underline this, we must love, buy and consume these products (regionally manufactured products) and accept the reality that quality and productivity should be a welcome hurdle and learning platform at the beginning rather than using the hurdle to condemn and bury such products or businesses,” Magosi said.
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“Third, we should understand the main reason why we are industrialising, Honourable (Foreign Affairs and International Trade minister Frederick) Shava has touched on a number of these. It is one of the main things to understand and make sure that no product leaves the region without value addition.
“That way, we not only create the much-needed jobs locally and make real contribution to the GDP [gross domestic product], to the region’s GDP, but also, we are sharing our knowledge, expertise and unique gifts to the rest of the world as well as adding our own marker to the global value chains.”
The fourth critical step, Magosi said, was that both member States and the secretariat should engage directly with businesses and industry.
“Do not talk about them as we often do, rather we should talk to them at every forum dedicated to this very subject of industrialisation,” he said.
“These businesses and industries, in my view, ought to be at the discussion and the strategising table, guiding us on what they require to exploit value chains, add value and truly substitute imports and create jobs.”
Meanwhile, Shava has said the Sadc Protocol on Trade, at its inception in 1996, incorporated the view that market integration through the elimination of tariffs, on its own, was not the best approach.
“It had to be accompanied by an industrialisation strategy, for the region, which would create an environment that fosters sustained and equitable growth within in the region,” he said.
He said it was important to always recognise that the private sector was a vital cog in the development of infrastructure and industrialisation processes.
“For the past 10 years, the region has been implementing the industrialisation strategy roadmap beginning with the first phase which ran from 2015 to 2020. The second phase which is aligned to the Sadc Vision 2050 is running from 2021 to 2050,” Shava said.
He said Sadc member States needed to bear in mind that the overarching goal of the African Continental Free Trade Area was to boost intra-African trade and that this should guide the region accordingly.
“We, therefore, have to reduce the goods and services that we have traded among ourselves,” Shava said.
The 7th Sadc Industrialisation Week is being held under the theme Promoting Innovation to unlock Opportunities for Sustainable Economic Growth and Development towards an Industrialised Sadc.
