LETTER: Steel duties cost SA jobs
If Ebrahim Patel really wanted competitiveness he would have dropped imported steel duties long ago
Trade, industry & competition minister Ebrahim Patel stated the obvious in his budget speech by saying that “SA’s import to GDP ratio is too high for a country that desperately needs more jobs”. He was also on point in stating that “competitiveness and industrial agility are critical to longer-run localisation efforts”.
Well, actions speak louder than words. Steel prices are being raised almost weekly by ArcelorMittal SA to levels where, if the company isn’t profitable now, then it must lack the industrial agility to ever succeed. Meanwhile, steel fabricators such as myself still have to pay an effective 18% duty on imported raw steel to protect AMSA, so we are still shedding jobs as we cannot compete against imported steel manufactures attracting minimal tariffs...
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