I spent last week at the 17th ISTMA World Conference in Shanghai, followed by a few days in China’s “Mould City,” Taizhou, alongside Tool, Die and Mould leaders. What struck me wasn’t the technology or the markets – it was how many conversations confirmed something I already believed: Africa is standing at a genuine turning point, and the rest of the industry is starting to notice too.
In Africa, the Tool, Die and Mould (TDM) sector gets little attention. It isn’t glamorous the way a new car plant or tech startup is. But it’s the quiet first step behind almost everything we manufacture – the packaging on our shelves, the parts in our vehicles, the products we’re increasingly making ourselves. Before you can manufacture something, you need the tools to make it. Skip that step, and we will never truly be masters of our own industry.
That’s the choice in front of Africa now. The continent’s growth story is strong: economies expanding at over 4% a year, and a labour force set to welcome 620 million new working-age people by 2050, driven by rising spending power, investment, and deepening trade ties among African countries. The risks are real too – debt, instability, and productivity that hasn’t caught up with our ambitions. Tooling sits at the heart of that productivity question. it determines how and what we build, and Africa’s contribution to global product development remains small.
South Africa currently leads the continent in this sector, and our progress is a fair preview of where the rest of Africa is heading. Morocco, Egypt, Kenya, Ghana, and Ethiopia are all growing their own manufacturing – cars, packaging, consumer goods – and as they grow, so does their need for local tooling. The African Continental Free Trade Area is accelerating this, done right, it lets countries specialise and trade with each other instead of buying it all from Asia. South Africa, Morocco and Egypt’s combined capacity already provides a foundation for a TDM revolution – one that could pull tooling work back from the low-cost overseas suppliers who used to win it automatically.
If I had to bet on the single biggest driver of growth over the next decade, it would be the automotive industry, specifically the shift to electric and hybrid vehicles. South Africa is retooling for it; Morocco is expanding EV assembly; Egypt is building battery capacity; Kenya, Ghana, and Rwanda are growing their own assembly operations. Each shift needs new tooling for body parts, battery housings, and the precision equipment automated assembly depends on. Africa still has fewer than 40 cars per 1,000 people, against over 700 in America – this is not a small opportunity. It is worth billions, and will go to whichever countries build the capability to take it.
“The next decade will decide whether Africa builds its own industrial future – or remains the world’s biggest importer of the tools that build everything else.”
Technology will decide who moves ahead. Staying competitive now depends on modern design software, automation, and faster, more precise machinery. In two weeks in China, I saw not a single old-style conventional machine – everything was CNC. Africa has a real chance to skip a generation of older manufacturing habits and adopt the newest tools and methods early, rather than playing catch-up like older industrial economies have.
None of it works without people, though. The shortage of skilled toolmakers, programmers, and mould designers is the biggest thing holding our sector back, and the biggest opportunity in front of us. Whichever countries take training seriously, through real apprenticeships, will end up dominating this sector, because the rest won’t have the people to keep up. PtSA’s training model is one I’d love other African countries to adopt.
I want to be honest about the challenges too. Low-priced tooling from Asia remains a serious competitor – the capacity China alone has built is staggering; one valley I visited holds over 3,000 toolrooms. Barriers to entry are high, too costly for smaller businesses alone; our industry isn’t yet coordinated, and demand in some markets is too fragmented to justify standalone investment. None of this is unsolvable, but none of it disappears by ignoring it either – it needs shared facilities, smarter financing, common standards, and a real push to grow local demand.
I see three stages ahead. Between now and 2028: the basics – training people to a global standard, common standards, shared infrastructure, and an AfCFTA that actually works. From 2028 to 2032: real growth, as free trade and the shift to electric vehicles pay off. By 2032, heading into 2035: the countries that did the work early should be ready to compete on the world stage, not just serve their own backyards.
Listening to peers from other continents in that Shanghai conference room, I came away more convinced than ever: Africa’s moment in this industry is real, and it’s now. The countries and companies that invest in people, technology, and collaboration will be the ones setting the terms in this sector a decade from now. The rest will still be paying someone else to build the tools that build everything else. I know where I want Africa to stand, and at PtSA and ISTMA Africa, we’ll keep making that case as loudly as we can.
