Saasda's Comprehensive Overview of the Stainless Steel Sector

Metals and Mining Review | Monday, April 03, 2023

A major area of concentration for Sassda in 2023 is generating more demand for South African stainless steel in important industries like mining, the auto industry, and food and beverage

FREMONT, CA

The biggest obstacle to stainless steel production and fabrication currently is load shedding, which has taken precedence over all other problems and is responsible for declining staff safety, motivation, and productivity as well as increasing living expenses and causing a noticeable decline in apparent consumption previously.

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Additionally, the local sector is well placed to provide African markets with a selection of premium stainless steel products that can compete with other worldwide rivals. This opens up vast prospects for locally manufactured goods, such as industrial capital equipment for use in mining, agriculture, food processing, and healthcare.

In order to strengthen the industry, offer access to new opportunities and capabilities in other areas, as well as to increase local demand, Sassda (Southern Africa Stainless Steel Development Association) has implemented the necessary procedures.

Local products can be included in infrastructure at all levels of government, which can further increase local demand. They come across numerous projects where the contract clearly states that all materials must be produced locally. These businesses need to be exempt from Department of Trade, Industry, and Competition regulations (DTIC).

The key area of focus for Sassda this year is creating an increased demand for South African stainless steel within key sectors such as mining, automotive and food and beverage. Moreover, Sassda is looking at ways to replace many applications where galvanised metals are now used with 3CR12, the most widely used 12 per cent chromium utility stainless steel in the world.

Moreover, Sassda has several collaborations set up to support localization in sectors like food and beverage, medical, automotive, cutlery, travel, and containers in numerous nations, offering a variety of options for the local stainless steel sector. Also, Sassda has been assisting in the evaluation of numerous government-funded initiatives and has noticed a noticeable increase in municipal undertakings in some provinces.

Stainless steel has also maintained a consistent annual compound worldwide growth rate of 5.8 per cent over the past few decades, which is 30 per cent higher than that of aluminium and more than twice as high as that of copper. This growth rate has been achieved despite a variety of global difficulties.

In light of numerous difficulties, Sassda has concentrated on adapting its procedures by offering improved tools to make it simpler for customers to access the stainless steel products made by its members. The association has also expanded its education and training programs, including several accredited continuous professional development presentations that can be tailored for members.

Together with a wide selection of tools for every level, Sassda also caters to non-technical users as well as the government, partners, and larger businesses. These instruments offer technical guidance and recommendations.

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