WHEN SA’s second-largest steel maker applies for business rescue as it can no longer continue as a going concern, it reflects as much on incoherent government policies as it does on the plight of the steel industry itself.The steel maker, Evraz Highveld, has had its own particular set of flaws, and the Russian owners, who bought Highveld Steel & Vanadium from Anglo American in 2006, have reportedly been trying to exit for some time. But it is hardly the only South African steel company making losses. The whole industry has been losing money for the past three to four years, says the Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of Southern Africa’s economist Henk Langenhoven.The industry has long been volatile and difficult, but the global market has been particularly tough lately as China’s steel makers have ramped up their exports and cut their prices in response to slowing domestic growth. And SA’s domestic market has been hit from all sides: with cheap imports swelling supply at a...
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