South Africa's titanium industrial policy: A product space perspective

Karolien De Bruyne, Wouter Bam and Denis Engelbrecht

South African Journal of Economics, 2023, vol. 91, issue 1, 3-27

Abstract: South Africa is a globally significant player in the titanium raw mineral production industry but does not play a large role in its downstream mineral processing. Since downstream activities generate much higher value added, the government has sought to support the end‐to‐end titanium value chain to capture more value from raw titanium before export through ‘beneficiation’‐related policies. This paper applies the input–output product space methodology to generate an overview of those sub‐sectors within the titanium value chain that are likely to support long‐term economic growth in South Africa. We then evaluate whether the selected global value chain activities are supported by the current industrial policy and/or whether a focus on currently excluded global value chain activities is recommended. Our results confirm that although beneficiation appears to make sense in the titanium industry in South Africa, it should (from a product space perspective) be applied neither automatically nor sequentially moving down the value chain. The paper concludes with the shortcomings of the approach and various avenues for future research.

Date: 2023
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