The Deputy Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Nomalungelo Gina delivered the keynote address at the launch of the South African Centre for Industry and Technology (SACIT) in Pretoria today. The SACIT is hosted by the University of Pretoria in partnership with the World Economic Forum.
Ministers and Deputy Ministers of G20 Member and Guest countries
Commissioners of the European Commission and African Union Commission
Ambassadors
Minister Parks Tau of the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition
Dr Mlungisi Cele, Director-General of the DSTI
Mayor of the City of Tshwane,
Mr Andrew Kirby, Chair of B20 and Chief Executive Officer of Toyota South Africa
Ms Nicole Roos, Chief Executive Officer of Nestlé, South Africa
Prof. Francis Petersen, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Pretoria
Dr Thulani Dlamini, Chief Executive Officer of the CSIR
Ladies and Gentlemen
I am honoured to welcome you all to the launch of the South African Centre for Industry and Technology, taking place as South Africa hosts the 3rd G20 Research and Innovation Working Group and Ministerial Meeting.
The theme of this evening, “Advancing Africa’s Industrial Transformation”, is most fitting. It is especially meaningful that we gather here at the CSIR, which has been at the forefront of world-class research that has catalyzed South Africa’s industrial development, since its establishment in 1945.
Revitalizing Manufacturing
The Centre for Industry and Technology arrive at a critical time as South Africa seeks to revitalize its manufacturing sector. Today, manufacturing contributes 13 percent of our gross domestic product and remains central to our economy. With nominal GDP in this sector projected to grow at an average of 5.7 percent annually over the next decade, the opportunities before us are significant. But to seize them, we must commit ourselves to localization and upskilling of the workforce.
It is from this background that the Department of Science, Technology and Innovation has, over the past decade, invested in technology diffusion programmes that directly support the manufacturing sector. Through the Technology Stations Programme, based at 13 of our universities of technology, small and medium-sized firms can access world-class facilities for product design, rapid prototyping, testing and process improvement. These stations also serve as training grounds, ensuring that our graduates are equipped with hands-on experience that is relevant to industry needs.
We have complemented this with the Technology Localization Programme, implemented by the CSIR, which helps local firms upgrade their technological capabilities so that they can supply large infrastructure projects and global value chains.
This work has extended into areas such as automotive components, foundry technologies, plastics, advanced tooling, and mining equipment manufacturing.
Equally important, both these programmes create pathways for human capital development by hosting interns, supporting postgraduate students, and providing training that equips our workforce with the advanced skills required for an innovation-led industrialization.
Ladies and Gentlemen, in short, these initiatives are designed to ensure that localization is not simply about producing goods locally, but about embedding innovation in our industrial base. This is how we strengthen firm competitiveness, create sustainable jobs, and reposition South Africa as an attractive destination for investment and industrial growth.
Modernizing Mining and Manufacturing
From a policy perspective, South Africa’s STI Decadal Plan (2022-2032) underscores that modernizing our economy means more than incremental change, it calls for technological upgrading across high-tech manufacturing firms in all priority sectors including mining.
In this regard, we are not speaking of aspirations alone. We are already taking bold steps. Working together with the Mandela Mining Precinct and the CSIR, we have launched a programme of modernizing the mining sector in ways that are changing how this industry operates. At the Mining Technology and Innovation Event hosted earlier this year, we showcased advanced technologies that are already making mines safer, more productive, and more sustainable.
These include drones and underground scanners that can map hazardous areas before workers enter them; handheld devices that detect risks on the rock face; and real-time mineral analysis tools that help us mine more efficiently and with less waste. We are also developing ‘look-ahead’ technologies that allow us to anticipate and manage unexpected rock formations before they cause accidents.
Ladies and Gentlemen, what is important is that these advances do not stand alone. They are creating opportunities for our local manufacturing sector, in robotics, automation, sensors, data systems and precision engineering. In other words, as we modernize mining, we are also building new industries and new value chains right here in South Africa.
Equally central to this effort is our commitment to people. Modernization must never mean exclusion. That is why these programmes put a strong emphasis on workforce training, human-centered technology adoption, and upskilling. Our miners, engineers and technicians are not passive users of imported technologies. Rather they are equipped to maintain, adapt, and even design these systems themselves.
In doing the above, we are acting in line with our to our mantra of placing Science, Technology and Innovation at the Centre of Government, Education, Industry and Society.
Building Synergies and Partnerships
As we launch the South African Centre for Industry and Technology, I would like to emphasis the need to build on the existing capabilities that South Africa possesses through the multiplicity of institutions in our national system of innovation.
This requires coordination and synergy from the ecosystem of government, academia, organized labour, civil society, business and industry towards innovation-led industrial development of South Africa. Herein lies our economic resilience and sustainable development.
I must also emphasize that innovation led transformation is not something which South Africa, can achieve on our own. We recognize the strategic importance of partnerships and solidarity right here on African soil. In recent years, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) has been seen as the framework for Africa’s industrialization. However, Intra-Africa Trade requires greater efforts to move research partnerships into the spheres of innovation and Commercialisation.
In this context, I am also pleased to share that work is underway to establish a new OR Tambo Research Chair on Industrialisation. This Chair, to be implemented by the National Research Foundation in partnership with the DSTI and the private sector, will focus on strengthening Africa’s research capacity in critical areas such as regional integration, regional value chains and green industrialisation. It will also create opportunities for postgraduate training and evidence-based policy advice to support the goals of the AFCFTA and Agenda 2063.
Such initiatives are pivotal if we are to transform regional integration from a distant aspiration into a lived reality. With purposeful partnerships, anchored in solidarity and economic transformation, it is not far-fetched to imagine an Africa where each of our five regional economic communities, North, South, East, West and Central, hosts vibrant manufacturing hubs producing goods and services for the continent and for the world.
This is the vision that the South African Centre for Industry and Technology invites us to pursue together, a vision of an Africa where innovation is not confined to laboratories but translated into manufacturing plants, value chains and jobs, a vision where our research partnerships become engines of industrial hubs across the continent and a vision where collaboration across governments, businesses and communities, makes regional integration a lived reality. It is a call for us to co-invest, co-innovate and co-create so that Africa takes its rightful place as a leader in global industrial transformation.
Thank you.
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