TRANSFORMATION MUST BE AN ESSENTIAL PART OF DEVELOPING THE AEROSPACE AND DEFENCE SECTOR, SAYS MINISTER TAU

The Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition, Mr Parks Tau, said the transformation agenda must be an integral part of the work of the Aerospace Industry Support Initiative (AISI) as it continues supporting small and medium enterprises in South Africa’s aerospace and defence sector. He was speaking at the 20-year commemoration of the agency, held at Waterkloof Air Force Base in Pretoria as part of the Africa Aerospace and Defence (AAD) exhibition. AISI was established by the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (the dtic) in 2006, according to the initiative’s own published history, to strengthen the competitiveness, sustainability and growth of South Africa’s aerospace and defence industry through capability-building, research, design and innovation, and is supported and managed in its work by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). The dtic funded AISI-supported companies to showcase their capabilities, products and technologies at AAD 2026.

TWO DECADES OF MEASURABLE SUPPORT

Tau said preserving sovereign industrial capability, advancing dual-use technologies, and retaining and upskilling critical technical skills are essential to South Africa’s national security and long-term competitiveness. In the past decade alone, AISI says it has supported 142 small and medium enterprises, helped create and sustain more than 1,236 jobs, enabled the development of 148 new technologies and products, and assisted firms in securing 49 international certifications and standards. “Transformation matters here more than in most sectors, precisely because aerospace and defence, have always been among the hardest industries to enter,” Tau said. “Capital intensity, certification requirements and decades of concentrated ownership have kept these industries largely closed to black entrepreneurs and emerging enterprises. If we do not deliberately open that door, the next twenty years will simply repeat the exclusions of the last.” Tau added that AISI currently requires the firms it funds to hold at least Level 4 B-BBEE status, and said it is deliberately building a pipeline of black industrialists, innovators and technologists able to compete in local and global markets.

Note: The source material’s image caption names a company as “Cybilim Atlas Defence”; the correct name of the South African electronic and systems engineering firm referred to is Cybicom Atlas Defence, and this appears to be a spelling error in the original document. The ideas expressed in this article are those of the minister and do not necessarily reflect the views of World Airnews or its affiliated members.