South Africa’s campaign to position industrial policy, and electric vehicle (EV) development in particular, as a cornerstone of economic transformation for emerging economies has found new traction at the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi (the BRICS countries are Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates). This adds real-world momentum to the case first set out by the B20’s Industrial Transformation and Innovation Task Force during South Africa’s Presidency of the G20.
The Task Force, chaired by Toyota South Africa CEO Andrew Kirby, had pointed to India’s EV transformation, with sales surpassing 1.5 million units by the 2023-24 financial year, as proof that predictable, long-term industrial policy frameworks, rather than subsidies alone, can drive manufacturing growth, new employment, and reduced import dependence across the developing world. “Each country must develop their strategy on the transition towards zero emission vehicles,” said Hiten Parmar, Executive Director of The Electric Mission, when the Task Force’s findings were first presented. That argument has now played out on a wider stage, with South Africa carrying similar priorities into the BRICS gathering. President Cyril Ramaphosa used the Summit to press South Africa’s economic agenda directly, confirming the country would use the platform to advance intra-BRICS trade and investment, industrialisation and value addition, and infrastructure funding aligned with the African Continental Free Trade Area.
Speaking at the BRICS Business Forum, the President addressed trade and supply chains, the digital economy, agriculture, and women-led development, before turning to the India-South Africa Business Leadership Roundtable to court additional Indian investment, including infrastructure, critical minerals and the electric vehicle battery value chain, a direct extension of the B20 Task Force’s original thesis for opportunities on EV’s in developing markets.
The Summit closed with the adoption of the New Delhi Declaration, reaffirming BRICS members’ commitment to a multilateral system free of any single country’s dominance. Briefing media at the Summit’s conclusion, President Ramaphosa said the grouping’s central achievement was its shared resolve on global governance, with member states aligned behind a vision of a multipolar world in which every economy’s sovereignty and interests are respected. He said BRICS nations remained focused on lifting living standards and expanding economic opportunity at a time of mounting geopolitical strain.
The clearest validation of the BRICS Business Council’s central argument came from Ethiopia. The Ethiopian Chapter’s chair told the council that Ethiopia has become the first country worldwide to impose an Electric Vehicle Import Mandate in 2024, ending the imports of new internal-combustion passenger vehicles, with EV registrations now exceeding 110,000 units and accounting for more than 60 percent of all new vehicle registrations. This is a more progressive version of the dual-pathway industrial strategy the B20 Task Force identified in India. Ethiopia’s chapter chair also flagged EV manufacturing, alongside energy and agriculture, as priority areas for BRICS investment, pointing to Chinese-backed industrial parks already shifting toward high-tech assembly and solar cell production.
South African officials framed the Summit outcomes as complementary to the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agenda, arguing that industrial capability built through BRICS-linked investment in vehicle manufacturing, battery production, and broader value chains can be channelled into African infrastructure and regional supply networks rather than remaining confined to bilateral trade. That framing echoes the B20 Task Force’s own recommendation that developing economies build capabilities positioning them as manufacturing hubs for the wider global EV market, not just as end markets for imported technology.
For South Africa, the throughline between its B20 submission and its BRICS diplomacy is deliberate. Both efforts argue that developing economies do not need to choose between conventional and emerging automotive technologies, but can use supply side regulations, targeted incentives, and infrastructure investment to build capability on both fronts simultaneously, while using multilateral platforms to attract the capital needed to do so. “The BRICS highlights on regional experiences such as India’s automotive manufacturing transition to EVs and Ethiopia’s progressive mandate show how countries can make this transition work for industrial development and economic growth” says Parmar.
That principle now sits at the centre of South Africa’s pitch to BRICS partners, as the country looks to translate summit-level commitments on trade, investment and industrialisation into concrete EV and manufacturing partnerships ahead of China’s BRICS chairmanship in 2027.
