On 15 October 2026, the Trade, Industry and Competition Minister said South Africa planned to phase out current Semi-Knock-Down (SKD) operations and would no longer support new SKD facilities in the country.
The minister spoke at the South African Auto Week event in Durban, which also marked the first day of the KwaZulu-Natal Investment Conference at the International Convention Centre (ICC). The speech was delivered on behalf of the president.
This decision comes as the government, working with the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa (Naamsa), the Automotive Business Council, the National Association of Automotive and Component and Allied Manufacturers (Naacam) and organised labour unions, reviews the Automotive Production Development Programme (APDP2).
The minister explained that this development would exclude medium and heavy commercial vehicles.
“We will work to strengthen the legal definitions around what we determine as Complete-Knock-Down (CKD) manufacturing. We have agreed that the strategic competitiveness of South Africa’s ladder frame LCV segment warrants formal investigation. We also agreed that any additional protection should be accompanied by reciprocal commitments on production, localisation, employment, transformation, exports and investment. I will be instructing ITAC to undertake this investigation to reach a final determination on the matter,” the minister said.
During his address, he acknowledged that this period marked the sector’s greatest turning point in a century, and that the way vehicles are powered, built, owned and used is changing rapidly.
The minister further indicated that New Energy Vehicles, South Africa’s commitment to carbon emission targets and the Critical Minerals Beneficiation Strategy are key focus areas in putting the sector on a path to success.
“If we do not build the vehicles that markets such as Europe and the United Kingdom (UK) will buy, we will lose those markets, and with them our plants and our jobs. At home, in the first seven months of this year, South Africans bought almost as many new energy vehicles as in the whole of last year. The automotive industry is where the beneficiation strategy meets our reindustrialisation programme. Every new energy vehicle sold today will one day reach the end of its life, and so will its battery. The government has begun work on an End-of-Life Vehicle policy as part of the decarbonisation pathway in our Industrial Development Strategy. Recycling batteries and giving them a second life is a new industry in its own right. South Africa intends to build it from the start,” the minister said.