The Freedom Front Plus (VF Plus) has noted with concern the latest findings by the African Development Bank indicating that Morocco overtook South Africa in 2025 as Africa’s most industrialised economy.
While South Africa remains a significant industrial powerhouse on the continent, this development confirms the country’s continuing decline in industrial competitiveness.
Years of unreliable electricity supply, state corruption, policy uncertainty, overregulation and poor economic governance have severely undermined South Africa’s attractiveness as an investment destination and constrained economic growth.
The Freedom Front Plus has been warning the Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition against the dangers of deindustrialisation for years. The loss of manufacturing capacity leads to less investment, fewer employment opportunities and increasing economic stagnation.
South Africa urgently needs to pivot politically to an administration that promotes economic growth through sound free-market principles, restores business confidence and encourages investment. The country possesses exceptional potential, but this can only be unlocked through policies that support growth, competitiveness and private enterprise.
The Freedom Front Plus’s republican values of the devolution of power, stronger community-based economies and free-market economic principles pave the way for stability, job creation and renewed confidence in South Africa’s economic future.
