During April 2013, South Africa’s Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) released the fifth iteration of the Industrial Policy Action Plan. In the Minister of Trade and Industry’s foreword to this document, the publication is referred to as an opportunity to reflect on key achievements, constraints and challenges experienced since the publication of the first IPAP in 2007 as well as an intended review of the various policy and operation platforms that have been put in place since then. The intention of this is to provide a ‘foundation upon which an extension, deepening and more timely deployment of industrial policy instruments can be achieved’. The notion of a ‘rolling plan’ in relation to IPAP can additionally be considered as providing an annual statement of intent from the Economic Sectors and Employment Cluster of government – which can be useful for intergovernmental integration and coordination – as well as encouraging wider debate and engagement by respective stakeholders.

This Trade Brief will initially offer a summary of this new version of IPAP. This is intended not only to inform interested analysts and parties of the progress of respective industrial policy interventions since 2007, but also to provide some reflections of the DTI’s thinking of the short- and medium-term future direction of industrial policy. The briefing will then look at some of these achievements and proposals in a more constructively critical light, given the dramatically changed international and domestic economic environment some six years down the line, when the National Industrial Framework and first version of IPAP were introduced in 2007.

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