Sassda is proud to announce its leadership in the development of a Stainless Steel Master Plan (SSMP) a comprehensive roadmap to guide the growth, competitiveness, and sustainability of the South African stainless steel sector through to 2030.
The initiative represents a major milestone for the industry, giving stainless steel the dedicated strategic focus it has long required. It builds on the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition’s (the dtic) Steel Master Plan, launched in 2020 as part of the country’s broader Reconstruction and Recovery Plan. While that framework provided direction for the general steel sector, stainless steel featured as only a small component. The new Master Plan now ensures that the sector’s unique value, challenges, and opportunities are addressed in full creating a clear and coordinated path forward.
Sassda Executive Director Michel Basson explains that the project recognises the importance of stainless steel as a value-intensive industry with significant downstream impact. “This Master Plan gives stainless steel the structured, long-term attention it deserves. It brings every part of the value chain into one coordinated process aimed at measurable, sustainable growth,” he says.
A partnership built on collaboration
The Stainless Steel Master Plan is being developed through extensive collaboration between industry and government. It is a sector-wide partnership that includes stainless steel producers, fabricators, suppliers, retailers, government departments, regulators, labour unions, and academic institutions.
Among the key partners are the dtic, South African Bureau of Standards (SABS), Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Southern African Institute of Welding (SAIW), South African Iron and Steel Institute (SAISI), South African Property Owners Association (SAPOA), and the Manufacturing Circle. Universities offering metallurgy and engineering programmes are also contributing to the process, along with environmental and labour representatives.
This broad involvement ensures that the plan is truly representative of the stainless steel value chain, balancing industrial priorities with sustainability, skills development, and transformation goals. Sassda’s role is to facilitate and coordinate the process, ensuring that all partners contribute to a shared vision for the sector’s long-term success.
From recognition to action
The Steel Master Plan identified stainless steel as a sector with strong potential for value addition, export growth, and employment creation. Building on that foundation, the SSMP will focus on expanding local manufacturing capacity, stimulating domestic demand, and growing exports of stainless steel products.
Key challenges such as import competition, fragmented regional markets, and the need for greater downstream capacity will be directly addressed. At the same time, the plan highlights stainless steel’s role in high-growth areas including food processing, water infrastructure, renewable energy, and clean technology sectors that will define the next generation of industrial opportunity.
“Through our participation in the Steel Master Plan, we built valuable public–private partnerships. That experience now positions us to lead a process focused entirely on stainless steel and the actions required to secure its long term sustainability.
“Through this framework, Sassda aims to create a practical and measurable set of actions that can be implemented across the industry, ensuring that strategic collaboration translates into real outcomes from job creation and localisation to technology transfer and skills development,” says Basson.
A structured roadmap to 2030
The Stainless Steel Master Plan is being developed in five distinct phases over the next four years. The first phase, currently underway, focuses on stakeholder mapping, consultation, and a detailed assessment of the sector’s structure, capacity, and performance. This includes a comprehensive SWOT and PEST analysis and a baseline audit of South Africa’s stainless steel manufacturing capability.
By May 2026, Sassda aims to complete the first three phases, which will define a shared vision, mission, and set of strategic goals for the industry. The fourth phase will establish a formal implementation and monitoring framework by October 2026, ensuring accountability and measurable performance indicators. The fifth and final phase, running from 2027 to 2029, will involve annual progress reviews, a mid-term evaluation in 2028, and a final assessment in 2029 setting the stage for the next planning cycle to 2030.
All targets will be set according to the SMART principle specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound to ensure progress is tangible and results-driven.
Aligning with Sassda’s Vision 2030
While the Master Plan represents a collective industry initiative, it is closely aligned with Sassda’s internal Vision 2030, which charts the association’s path toward long-term relevance, resilience, and influence.
Vision 2030 focuses on strengthening membership engagement, improving technical and market support services, promoting exports, and deepening Sassda’s involvement in standards and policy development. It also reaffirms Sassda’s commitment to representing the entire stainless value chain from producers and fabricators to end users through credible technical expertise and market insight.
Together, Vision 2030 and the Stainless Steel Master Plan provide a two-tiered approach to growth: one strengthening Sassda’s institutional capacity, and the other guiding the broader industry’s collective advancement.
As Basson notes, “Vision 2030 defines who we are as an association, while the Master Plan defines how the industry can grow and compete globally. The two are designed to reinforce each other.”
Building a sustainable future
The development of the SSMP reflects Sassda’s longstanding belief that true industrial growth depends on partnership between business, government, and labour. The plan will focus on practical implementation, ensuring that collaboration delivers tangible outcomes such as increased local production, improved export performance, and the creation of sustainable employment opportunities.
The stainless steel sector has shown resilience through periods of economic and operational pressure, but Sassda recognises that long-term ompetitiveness requires a structured, forward-looking strategy. The Master Plan provides exactly that a framework that prioritises sustainability, accountability, and shared growth.
“The Master Plan is about practical action, not policy statements,” Basson explains. “It provides the structure, focus and accountability the industry needs to build competitiveness and sustainability.”
Positioning South Africa globally
As Sassda leads the coordination of the Stainless Steel Master Plan, it continues to strengthen its own strategic focus under Vision 2030. Together, these two frameworks are set to position South Africa as a trusted global producer of high-quality stainless steel products for both domestic and international markets.
Through collective action, data-driven planning, and a renewed sense of purpose, Sassda and its partners are ensuring that stainless steel remains the material of choice for modern, sustainable development and that the South African stainless steel industry is ready to meet the challenges and opportunities of the decade ahead.