Gauteng remains the economic centre of South Africa, but its growth engine has stalled. Over the past decade, the province has averaged less than 1% annual growth.
Fixed investment has declined significantly, eroding productive capacity, while unemployment has risen to about 33%. Nearly a million households now live below the food poverty line. This is not a temporary slowdown; it is a structural weakening of the province’s economic base.
During the 2024 national and provincial election campaign, as RISE Mzansi’s Gauteng Premier candidate, I spent a lot of time in communities across the province listening to and engaging with residents, workers and small business owners.
The message was consistent: people want work, functioning cities and a government that enables opportunity rather than obstructing it. Those conversations shaped our commitment to rebuilding Gauteng as a job-creating, investment-driven, productive economy.
The task now is to translate that commitment into execution.
At the heart of Gauteng’s economic challenges is a simple truth: the economy has stopped producing at the scale required to sustain growth.
Sustained growth depends on sustained investment in infrastructure, industrial capacity and productive eco-systems. When investment declines growth slows, job creation stagnates and the economy becomes increasingly consumption-driven rather than production-led. This is precisely the pattern that has taken hold in Gauteng.
In 2023, Gauteng’s biggest employment sectors included finance, community services and trade. Trade is not a single sector per se — rather it refers to a vast ecosystem that spans supermarket workers and warehouse operators to township shopkeepers and informal traders moving food, clothing, electronics and household goods across one of the most densely populated urban economies on the continent.
It is labour-intensive, which is why it absorbs so many workers. But it is also heavily consumption-driven and often reliant on imported goods, with weak links back into local production.
The policy challenge is therefore not simply to expand trade, but to deepen it and link it more effectively to local manufacturing, logistics and value-added production.
This is the context in which the Gauteng City Region Economic Growth and Development Plan (GCR-EGDP) has been developed. It sets a clear ambition: to lift economic growth to between 3% and 5% and, in doing so, unlock up to 410,000 additional jobs by 2030, rising further by 2035.
What distinguishes this plan is its focus on where growth and jobs will actually come from. It identifies 12 priority sectors with strong potential for employment, exports and innovation.
These include advanced manufacturing linked to the automotive and aerospace value chains, global business services and ICT, agriculture and agro-processing, logistics, tourism and emerging sectors such as the green economy and digital industries.
Equally important is the plan’s spatial logic. Gauteng’s economy is not uniform, and growth will not be evenly distributed across the five regions. In Tshwane, the focus is on automotive production, research and development, and aerospace.
In Johannesburg, finance, ICT and business services remain central. Ekurhuleni builds on its strength in advanced manufacturing and logistics, while Sedibeng and the West Rand offer opportunities in agro-processing, tourism and renewable energy.
Growth, in other words, will be built corridor-by-corridor, sector-by-sector.
Supporting township enterprises, enabling informal traders to operate and scale, and using public procurement to build local value chains are the necessary levers to unlock long term sustainable job creation.
Equally important is recognising that Gauteng’s economy is not only formal. The informal and township economies are among the largest sources of livelihoods in the province.
Yet too many of these businesses operate at the margins excluded from finance, formal supply chains and public procurement.
If we are serious about inclusive growth, this must change. Supporting township enterprises, enabling informal traders to operate and scale and using public procurement to build local value chains are the necessary levers to unlock long-term sustainable job creation.
None of this will succeed however, if we do not confront a more basic constraint, the functioning of our municipalities. There is no economic growth strategy that can succeed in a city that cannot keep the lights on, maintain infrastructure or process permits and regulatory approvals efficiently. Reliable energy, effective logistics, clean and safe urban environments, and capable local administration are not “nice to haves” — they are the foundation upon which investment decisions are made.
This is why the plan places strong emphasis not only on sectors, but on infrastructure, spatial transformation and building a capable, accountable state. It also recognises a hard truth: plans do not fail because of poor ideas, but because of weak execution.
To address this, the GCR-EGDP introduces a new model of implementation anchored on industry-led “Action Labs” where business, government, and other stakeholders work together to solve sector-specific challenges, with clear timelines and accountability. This is a deliberate shift from policy as intention to policy as co-ordinated action.
Ultimately, the success of this plan will not be measured in documents or announcements, but in jobs created, businesses supported and a visible improvement in the lived experience of the residents of Gauteng. The work of rebuilding Gauteng’s economy will not be done by government alone. It will require partnership with business, labour, municipalities and communities themselves. The commitments we made during the campaign were rooted in the lived realities of the residents of Gauteng.
The task now is to match those commitments with delivery. This plan is an invitation to work together to rebuild Gauteng’s growth engine, and to ensure that its economy once again creates opportunity at the scale its people deserve.
Vuyiswa Ramokgopa, is the Gauteng MEC for economic development, agriculture and rural development. She is also the national chairperson of RISE Mzansi, which she represents in the Gauteng Provincial Legislature.
VUYISWA RAMOKGOPA
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