Manufacturing job losses in South Africa show limitations of local content rules

Hopes that South Africa’s renewables boom would create a domestic manufacturing industry have been dashed as companies find they lack the scale to compete with big Chinese producers. With countries such as Algeria also adopting tough local content rules as a way of supporting domestic manufacturing (AE 340/4), policymakers across the continent will have to consider whether the benefits of the policy outweigh the higher cost of electricity that results from it.