Why Imports don’t explain our decline

About this episode

Donald Mackay discusses the challenges facing South Africa's manufacturing sector and the ineffectiveness of import tariffs as a solution.

One of the best industrial minds in South Africa, XA Global Trade Advisors MD Donald Mackay, tells Peter Bruce in this edition of Podcasts from the Edge that using import tariffs to protect local industry is a losing strategy. “ We assume that the reason our manufacturing sector more broadly struggles to compete is that we assume that an import tariff will fix it whereas the reason we struggle to make things is we've got broken infrastructure. We don't have electricity... The ports are broken.The reason we're not competitive has nothing to do with what other people are doing. Many of our imports are just the importation of [other countries’] electricity that is working consistently and functioning infrastructure and a safe environment to invest in. That is what you're effectively importing.” Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

People in this episode

Host: Peter Bruce

Guest: Donald Mackay

Topics covered

• import tariffs
• local industry
• manufacturing sector
• infrastructure
• electricity
• economic strategy

Keywords

• import tariffs
• manufacturing
• South Africa
• infrastructure
• electricity
• economic decline

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: XA Global Trade Advisors, TimesLIVE Podcasts

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