STRONG support for a 40 percent tax on copper scrap leaving the country was expressed at the copper summit organised by the Cape Chamber of Commerce.
Michael Bagraim, President of the Chamber, said the effect of the tax would be that more scrap copper would be available to South African manufacturing industries at lower prices and that this would lead to more jobs in factories.
There was unanimous support for the urgent implementation of the Second Hand Goods Act which had been approved by Parliament in 2009, but had not yet been gazetted because the regulations required by the Act had not been drafted.
When the Act is implemented it will become easier to clamp down on dealers who sell stolen property.
The idea of a tax on copper scrap exports has been put forward by the Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of South Africa.
Seifsa has pointed out that countries which buy South African copper scrap already have their own taxes to curb scrap exports. In the case of China, one of the main buyers, the duty is 40 percent.
“The result is that untaxed South African copper is cheap for the importing countries while our local industry has to pay import parity prices.
“This makes it all but impossible to compete with imported products, some of which were no doubt made from copper stolen in South Africa,” Bagraim said.
Seifsa has already written to the Minister of Finance, Pravin Gordon, to request the export tax.
A further point made at the copper summit was that recycling copper scrap used just 10 percent of the electricity required to produce new copper.
Peter Hugo, who chaired the meeting, said the latest Wesgro report on the economy of the Western Cape said exports of “copper and articles thereof” were valued at R499m in 2009.
