Surge in cheap cable imports floods South Africa, driving 43% volume rise and 28% price drop, stoking local job losses and safety concerns

Yet while volumes have soared, the average landed price has moved sharply in the opposite direction, falling 28% from R156,636 to R112,086 a tonne. Local manufacturers warn that the widening gap is placing mounting pressure on domestic production. And the surge is not limited to one segment, spanning low-, medium- and high-voltage cable and ACSR overhead conductors.

“When more tonnes arrive every year and the price per tonne keeps falling, that is not a normal market,” says Andre Smith, chief executive officer of Cables 4 Africa (C4A), previously South Ocean Electric Wire (SOEW), a subsidiary of JSE-listed C4A Holdings.

“Compliant local factories cannot produce cable at those imported prices. Local manufacturers need to adhere to local regulatory regulations, but many of these imported products fail some or all of the compliance tests. This we've confirmed in our own laboratory. Someone is selling below a sustainable cost of production and South African plants and jobs are paying for it.”

Low voltage is the sharpest hit

Smith says low-voltage cable is the core of C4A’s manufacturing. Imports in that category rose from 17,080 tonnes in the year to June 2024 to 21,607 tonnes in the year to June 2026.

“This is roughly equal to nine months of our production capacity. In value terms it is in the same order as the company’s annual turnover. Over the same period the average price of imported low-voltage cable fell from R170,123 a tonne to R126,275 a tonne, a 26% collapse.

“That volume, landed at a price no SABS-compliant local plant can match, is a direct displacement of local output. Low-voltage cable goes into homes, mines, factories, commercial buildings and renewable-energy tie-ins,” Smith says. “It is also the product we test every day in our laboratory. Too much of what imported fails the standards we have to meet. The market is being offered cheap cable that looks the same on a drum but it is not the same in service."

The surge is across the voltage range

Medium- and high-voltage imports more than doubled in two years, from 4,425 tonnes to 9,100 tonnes. In the latest year alone imports rose 32%, from 6,885 tonnes to 9,100 tonnes. The average price in that category has fallen from R141,386 a tonne two years ago to R94,739.

ACSR conductor imports, used on overhead lines, rose from 1,586 tonnes to 2,237 tonnes over the same two-year period, a 41% increase, while the price per tonne fell from R53,949 to R45,589.

“This is not one tariff line having a bad year,” Smith says. “Low voltage, medium and high voltage, and ACSR are all moving in the same direction: more tonnes, cheaper tonnes. That is a structural import shock.”

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Jobs are already going

“The import wave is now showing up as lost shifts and lost jobs across the local industry. Other established South African cable manufacturers are already retrenching or preparing layoffs. The damage does not stop at the factory gate. Copper, PVC, steel wire, drums, transport and testing laboratories all provide services to a local cable plant.

“Twenty-one thousand tonnes of low-voltage imports is not an abstraction,” Smith says. “It’s months of local production that could not happen, and people retrenched.”

A one-way regional door

Smith adds that the pressure is made worse by uneven regional trade. Zambia is a SADC partner, and Zambian-origin cable enters South Africa duty-free. South African manufacturers say electrical cable exported from South Africa into Zambia still faces duty; industry reports put the charge in a range of 10% depending on the line, plus local taxes.

“Preferential paper access and actual landed cost are not the same thing. We are asked to compete at home against duty-free regional product and dumped third-country product, then face a duty when we try to sell the other way,” Smith says. “That is not a single market. It is a one-way market.”

Safety is the hidden invoice

“C4A’s accredited in-house laboratory continues to test imported product against the local and international standards South African factories must meet. The results are consistent with what contractors already find on site: inferior conductors, thin insulation and missing certifications. Failures show up as overheating, fires, downtime, invalid certificates of compliance and insurance disputes.

“Cheap cable is only cheap until it fails,” he says. “Then the country pays in outages, repairs and the risk to people. South Africa has the plant and the laboratory to manufacture and supply safe cable. What it does not have is a market in which compliant product can still find a price.

“We are not asking the public to take the industry’s word for the scale of the problem. The import figures are in the official data: 43% more tonnes in two years, 28% lower price per tonne, and a low-voltage inflow large enough to cover most of a major local factory’s annual production.”