Survey warns of SA’s ‘tenous’ gateway status

South Africa’s status as
the trading and logistics
gateway into Africa is
under threat from the
likes of Nigeria, Egypt
and other southern
African trade corridors,
Barloworld Logistics
marketing executive Kate
Stubbs told delegates at the
Johannesburg presentation
of the company’s
supplychainforesight
2012 survey titled South
Africa Inc: Growth,
Competitiveness and the
Africa Question.
“The research
highlighted that South
African companies need to
understand the threats and
opportunities present for
industry and the national
supply chain in other
African markets,” she said.
The biggest constraint
to South Africa’s
competitiveness,
according to the report,
is the skills dearth, with
rail inefficiency, lack
of coordinated logistics
strategy and cost of
transport among the top
concerns.
On the question of which
sectors of the SA economy
were seen as having unique
competitive advantages and
why, unsuprisingly mining
was in top position with
75%, while logistics and
transportation scored a mere
30%, the second lowest
score.
A look at the article this
week about the demise of
DTB Cartage (see page 4)
– attributed largely to the
inefficient performance of
Transnet Port Terminals –
underscores the practical
impact of this finding.
Transnet general
manager: corporate strategy
Irvindra Naidoo however
expressed surprise at
this outcome. While he
welcomed the findings
of the survey and agreed
with the need in the report
to work towards common
strategies “because at
the end of the day we all
want the same thing,”
he expressed concern at
the fact that transport
and logistics had scored
so poorly in terms of
competitiveness.
“That’s strange,” he said,
“because we have a really
highly regarded logistics
industry.
“Based on an annual
World Bank survey of
5000 freight forwarder
representatives in 155
countries – where they
were asked to rate the
performance of the national
freight system looking
at efficiency of customs
processes, quality of
infrastructure and the like
– SA in the last survey was
ranked 28.
“We were the highest
performing of the upper
middle income countries
in the world – and we tend
to forget that as much
as we do have problems
these problems are not
unique. There are a lot of
countries struggling with
infrastructure and skills
problems,” he said.
“We are well positioned to
play a role as a transhipment
point into the region.”
While “well positioned”
is not debated, one of the
points made in the survey
suggests that we have some
way to go before we can
claim to be the optimum
gateway into the subcontinent.
“Despite the widespread
assumption that South
Africa is the continent’s
economic powerhouse
and the supply chain and
logistics gateway to sub-
Saharan Africa,” said the
report, “the majority of the
sample felt that this position
was tenuous.
“Unless the country
actively addresses trade
competition and does
something to develop trade
corridors and capture
market share in the southern
African economic region,
major competition from
Mozambique and Nigeria
among others will reduce the
country’s market share.”
Perhaps it’s time for every
stakeholder to face up to this
reality and start working
towards solutions rather than
finding excuses to justify
poor performance.