Industrial policy under democracy: apartheid's grown-up infant industries? Iscor and Sasol

• Published in: Transformation (Durban, South Africa) South Africa), 2010, Vol.71 (1), p.50-75
• Main Authors: Roberts, Simon, Rustomjee, Zavareh
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0258-7696; 1726-1368; 1726-1368
• DOI: 10.1353/trn.0.0044

The apartheid state's selective intervention to shape South Africa's industrial development around the minerals energy complex included the establishment and support of state-owned enterprises in chemicals and steel in the form of Sasol and Iscor. Both of these companies were privatised at the end of the 1980s and appear to be infant industries that have grown-up. Under democracy, we find the corporate strategies of the two companies to have been very important in the continued skewed resource and energy oriented industrial development path of South Africa. Our evaluation of industrial policy through the lens of its engagement with, and impact on, the decisions of these two companies reveals it has largely failed to come to terms with the interests and power of these companies and the implications for the economy.