Govt and pharma tackle manufacturing crisis & Sun International unveils Responsible Gambling Charter

SPEAKER_1 (0:01)

And now, The Money Show with Stephen Grootes on 702

SPEAKER_2 (0:06)

Let's walk the talk.

Stephen Grootes (0:07)

The Money Show with Stephen Grootes is brought to you by Absa CRB, proud sponsor of the Absa Africa Financial Markets Index 2026 Good evening, nine minutes after six. Welcome to the program. I'm Stephen Grootes. I've been amazed at some of the numbers that have been coming out from the ShopRite Hunger Index, and I'll talk a little bit more about it as we go. But the fact that we have so many people in South Africa, perhaps around 15%, who've felt hunger in the last year, tells you everything you need to know about an economy that isn't working. There's no greater lesson to draw from that. Anyway, just something to think about. I'll talk a little bit more about it as we go through the program together.

Interesting comments coming from the presidency. There'll be a new sort of government business task force. Quite a thorny question, actually. Do you think the health department, when it's looking for drugs, when it's looking for drug suppliers, so think of the drugs it needs in clinics, in government hospitals, etc.

Does it just go for price? Which if I were a government health department, I must say, I'd be very tempted. Or do you say, we also need you to buy local?

What if they're just a little bit more expensive? Does that mean you can buy fewer doses of than a cap of beer or something like that? Or not just headache tablets, but something that will literally save a life? Of course, what you really want is for your local prices, your local pharmaceuticals to be the cheapest possibly available. And I'm sure there are cases where that happens. But in a volume-based industry, you are going to go in the end. Economics will send you to the person who produces the most, which might be manufacturers in India, for example. We'll talk about that in a moment with Dr. Stavros Nicolaou, the chair of Pharmisa. He, of course, is representing the pharmaceutical industry in that. Sun International doing something I haven't seen other companies in this space do. So they're in the gaming space. And they're launching a responsible gambling charter.

Essentially, they're trying to regulate themselves in a way their competitors are not being regulated. Ulrik Bengtsson is the CEO at Sun International. We'll ask him about that. Really interesting. And then, a deep dive into our industrial space. So Bloomberg reporting that China's imports into South Africa or their exports from China into South Africa are up actually quite significantly over the last few years. And even this year compared to last year, lots of reasons as to why that is. But we'll talk through that with Noqandam Asseqo from TIPS. We'll also then look at what measures there are to help protect our industry. Tikadzou Selou is from NEDBANK and just look at that issue. I think it's a really important issue. In fact, one of the burning economic issues of our time in South Africa, I'd suggest. Good to hear from you. Do we go local or do we go cheap? We obviously want both, but which way would you go for pharmaceutical drugs? 72 702 1702, also of course, 11 AA 30702 and 21 446 567

SPEAKER_1 (3:06)

The Money Show with Stephen Grootes, live on 92.7 and 106 FM, streaming on the Prime Media Plus app and DSTV channel 856

Stephen Grootes (3:17)

Well, BusinessLive reporting this evening, President Cyril Ramaphosa, establishing a government business task force. It will try and manage the problem of whether drugs used by the health department should be made here.

Our pharmaceutical industry, you can imagine their view. South Africa's government should buy local. The health department should buy local. If I were there, that would be mine too. But the health department says it has to ensure value for money. It will look for the cheapest drugs. And in a volume space, you can imagine why that might be. Dr. Stavros Nicolaou is the chair of the pharmaceutical industry group, Pharmisa.

Stavros, good evening. Good to talk to you again. Obviously, the health department would be a major client for you. Are they not buying local at the moment?

Stavros Nicolaou (4:00)

Stephen, firstly, good evening to you and the viewers. And thanks very much for having me back on your show.

I'm, in fact, representing the PTG, which represents the entirety of the pharmaceutical industry in South Africa this evening. That includes importers and local producers. It also includes the multinationals at the R&D-based companies. Now at the core of the issue here is that the pharmaceutical sector presents a real industrialization opportunity for our country. There are not too many sectors that I think we can industrialize and turn into globally competitive sectors at this point in time. I know there's the automotive sector, and I'm excluding things outside of commodities and minerals. So at a manufacturing level, there are not many sectors that we can say hand on heart are globally competitive. Pharmaceuticals is interesting because Africa has the most disproportionate disease burden and per capita consumes a disproportionate amount of pharmaceuticals. So it presents certainly at a volume level, or if you were to aggregate volumes on the continent, it presents an opportunity.