Honourable Chairperson,
Honourable Minister and Deputy Minister,
Honourable Members,
South Africa cannot regulate its way to prosperity. We must build our way there. We must trade our way there. And we must industrialise our way there.
This Budget Vote takes place at a difficult economic moment. Geopolitical instability, inflationary pressure, and trade disruption continue to weigh on developing economies.
Domestically, our economy grew by only 1.1% in 2025, far below the growth rate required to meaningfully reduce our high rate of unemployment and poverty.
Behind every unemployment statistic is a household under severe pressure. A business unable to expand. A young person losing confidence that the economy and their country have a place for them.
South Africans want jobs. They want investment. They want an economy that gives ordinary citizens, without elite connections, a fair chance to build a better life.
The central question that this budget therefore seeks to respond to is: how must the dtic, which sits at the heart of our economy, create the conditions for faster growth, greater investment, and sustainable job creation?
The answer begins with recognising that economic growth is produced by confidence. By certainty. By competitive open markets. By functioning infrastructure. By a capable state. And by government institutions that reduce barriers to growth and make it easier for businesses to invest, manufacture, export, and employ.
As Deputy Minister responsible for technical infrastructure entities including the South African Bureau of Standards (SABS), the National Regulator for Compulsory Specifications (NRCS), the South African National Accreditation System (SANAS), and the National Metrology Institute of South Africa (NIMSA), I want to emphasise an underrated point:
We need to recognise that standards, accreditation, metrology, and product regulation are critical economic infrastructure.
South African products must meet international standards to compete globally. If regulation becomes inconsistent, inefficient or too costly, investment moves elsewhere.
A capable regulatory environment must protect consumers, support industrial growth, and play their role to combat the illicit market of counterfeit and illegal products, which have been estimated to cost the economy up to R100 billion annually.
Within the confines of this budget, the allocations to these entities must translate into measurable improvements in turnaround times, governance, certification capacity, and support for exporters and manufacturers.
Chairperson, there is growing recognition that South Africa faces serious structural constraints: excessive red tape, infrastructure bottlenecks, weak investment levels, and regulatory inefficiency.
That is why the dtic is working on the Business Omnibus Bill which will seek to modernise, rationalise, and streamline existing commercial legislation, in order to fundamentally improve the ease of doing business in South Africa.
A key mechanism for realising one of the specific objectives the Omnibus Bill, namely fast-tracking investment, has already been established in the form of the Fusion Centre, where investment-related regulatory bottlenecks are addressed, while the public-facing self-tracking dashboard portal is in development.
We must make every effort to ensure that this “high-speed approval lane” is successful and meets its 90-day turnaround timeframe for major projects that can boost local employment, industrial development, and export growth.
Just as the dtic seeks to avoid the concentration of industrial financing in a few economic centres, so similarly South Africa requires empowerment policies that do not only concentrate their impact on a small group of beneficiaries, but instead produces economic inclusion for all and expands access to sustainable opportunity, particularly for young people, women, workers, and emerging entrepreneurs.
I was in Matlosana, North West Province two weeks ago with the NCOP, where a resident told us that in 1994, he was 18 years old. He had high hopes and dreams of what the dawn of democracy would bring. Today he is 50 years. He has never had formal employment in his life. In fact, there are ‘born-frees’ who have never had formal employment in their life.
This is the reality of millions of South Africans. If we don’t do something drastic, there will be children born today in 2026, that will never have formal employment in their life. The only way to change this social picture, is to change the economic one.
To change the economic direction that has led us down this path of low economic growth. We do this through bold economic policy and legislative reforms for which the dtic is responsible.
I thank you.
MS ALEXANDRA ABRAHAMS
DEPUTY MINISTER OF TRADE, INDUSTRY AND COMPETITION
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