Parliament, Tuesday, 9 June 2026 – The Portfolio Committee on Trade, Industry and Competition has cautioned government that austerity measures may adversely affect the implementation of the newly adopted South Africa’s Industrial Development Strategy.
The committee commended the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (DTIC) on championing the South Africa’s Industrial Development Strategy anchored by diversification, decarbonisation and digitalisation. The Strategy is expected to deepen industrialisation and reimagine manufacturing to ensure competitiveness. With the manufacturing sector experiencing a sharp decline over the last few decades, the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) Programme is one of the anchor programmes to attract new direct investment from domestic and foreign players in a commercially competitive space.
Today, the committee received briefings from the DTIC, National Treasury and the Western Cape Department of Economic Development and Tourism (WCDEDT) on the challenges affecting the development and sustainability of the Atlantis and Freeport Saldanha SEZs as well as solutions thereof. This is a follow-up to the committee’s oversight visit to the SEZs in October 2025.
The committee’s interest was on the additional tax incentives provided to SEZs, with a particular focus on the process of approval and implementation of SEZ tax incentives, access to these tax incentives by companies, possible provision of additional incentives to SEZs that currently do not have access to these incentives. The lack of access to certain incentives in some SEZs is perceived to have a negative impact on these SEZs’ ability to attract investment. Furthermore, the funding for operations and bulk infrastructure was one of the critical issues, in relation to the support of the provincial government to the SEZs.
The committee heard from National Treasury that generally tax incentives are applied with a set time period to enable it to review and amend these to ensure that the intended outcome is being achieved. In particular, there was a policy decision taken in 2020 to not extend the SEZ tax incentives to any new SEZs. However, the committee is calling on National Treasury to open space to engage all social partners on how to strengthen its tax regime in relation to the SEZ Programme to ensure that South Africa can compete with other countries’ SEZs.
The committee welcomed the WCDEDT’s commitment to providing the much-needed 2026/27 operations budget for both the Atlantis and Freeport Saldanha SEZs, as well as the DTIC’s resolution of the funding for bulk infrastructure for the Atlantis SEZ.
The Chairperson of the committee, Mr Mzwandile Masina, stressed that austerity measures tend to lead to contracting economies, deepening socio-economic inequality and rising unemployment; thus, it may lead to mass social protests. “Therefore, fiscal and monetary policy must support industrial policy to ensure long-term economic growth and development, economic transformation and job creation,” he said.
ISSUED BY THE PARLIAMENTARY COMMUNICATION SERVICES ON BEHALF OF THE CHAIRPERSON OF THE PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE ON TRADE, INDUSTRY AND COMPETITION, MR MZWANDILE MASINA.
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