OVERVIEW
Manufacturing
SECTOR INSIGHT
Vaccine manufacturing is accelerating.
T
he Aspen Pharmacare facility in Gqeberha will make hundreds of millions of doses of the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine for South Africa and Africa. A consortium of development finance organisations, including the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation, made €600-million in financing available to the South African company in the course of 2021 to assist it in ramping up production of the vaccines. By 2022, the facility should be making about 500-million doses annually. In Johannesburg, global pharmaceutical company Mylan has purchased a manufacturing site, previously used by Ascendis Health, to make antiretrovirals to cater to the seven-million South Africans living with HIV. The Isando factory will produce effervescent tablets, semi-solid and hard capsules and pills. A new tender for a national supplementary HIV/Aids drug tender, which was previously awarded to foreign companies, is to be issued, opening up opportunities for local manufacturers such as Cipla Medpro. The three-year tender is worth R18.3-billion. Pirates off the west coast of Africa are driving an increase in boatbuilding in South Africa. Companies like Paramount Marine which specialise in security boats are receiving many orders. In August 2021, the company announced that its Cape Town facility was making 26 boats for a contract price of more than R850-million. PG Bison, a subsidiary of KAP Industrial Holdings, is investing more than R2-billion at its plant in Mkhondo in Mpumalanga (pictured). With operations in four provinces ranging from forestry to the manufacture of medium-density fibreboard (MDP), particleboard and value-added products, PG Bison is also building a new MDP plant in Mpumalanga to complement its existing Gauteng facility. TFG, whose South African brands include TotalSports, Markhams and Foschini, has a five-year plan to double its manufacturing capacity. Having purchased Prestige Clothing Maitland and Prestige Clothing Caledon and spent R75million on expanding the factory in Caledon, TFG now plans to significantly increase the percentage of locally-made clothing items from the current level of 35% to 55%.
ONLINE RESOURCES Chemical and Allied Industries’ Association: www.caia.co.za Manufacturing Circle: www.manufacturingcircle.co.za South African Textile Federation: www.texfed.co.za
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PG Bison is spending on expanded capacity.
Credit: PG Bison The Manufacturing and Competitiveness Enhancement Programme (MCEP) of the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (the dtic) has disbursed grants which have resulted in 230 000 jobs being “sustained”. Because of the Clothing and Textile Competitiveness Programme, that sector currently now employs around 95 000 workers, contributing 8% to manufacturing GDP and 2.9% to overall GDP. In the leather sector 22 new factories have been opened, supporting 2 200 jobs. In the Western Cape, this revival is reflected in member companies of the Cape Clothing and Textile Cluster hiring 35% more staff in four years. About 23 600 people are employed in the province and exports from the Cape amounted in 2017 to R4.4billion with sales up by 34% above inflation. ■ SOUTH AFRICAN BUSINESS 2022
