The impending acquisition of one of South Africa’s key cement producers, AfriSam, by West China Cement Limited marks a troubling moment for local ownership in the country’s manufacturing sector. For the African Manufacturers Foundation (AMF), this is not merely a commercial transaction. It is a setback in the long and unfinished struggle to build African-owned industrial champions.

AfriSam’s financial distress is well known. Years of restructuring, compounded by heavy long-term debt, have left shareholders such as the Public Investment Corporation and major local banks, including Nedbank, Standard Bank and Absa, eager for an exit. Yet the solution now on the table raises uncomfortable questions about who ultimately controls South Africa’s productive assets.

This is especially so given that a credible African alternative existed.

Camel Cement, owned by the Amsons Group, one of Africa’s leading cement producers and a fast-growing pan-African conglomerate, tabled a bid that would have kept AfriSam under continental ownership. The proposal was not speculative. It was strategic. It envisioned expanding an African industrial group into South Africa, with a focused investment agenda across cement, mining and energy.

That vision has now been sidelined, with Chinese interests emerging in pole position.

For AMF, the Camel Cement bid was significant not simply because it was African, but because of how it was structured. It involved local Black Economic Empowerment partners and women-led empowerment stakeholders, a model aligned with South Africa’s transformation framework and Africa’s broader industrial aspirations. It represented one of the earliest formal expressions of interest by an African company to acquire AfriSam, and with it, an opportunity to deepen African-led industrial investment.

This was not an isolated deal. It reflected a wider shift across the continent, where indigenous African companies are increasingly driving medium- and long-term investments in infrastructure, manufacturing and energy.

“By seeking to establish a stronger presence in South Africa’s industrial landscape, Camel Cement and its partners were positioning themselves to support growing regional demand while deepening intra-African trade,” says AMF Acting Chief Executive Officer, Lebo Radebe. “Such moves are closely aligned with the objectives of the African Continental Free Trade Area and the African Union’s Agenda 2063, which envisions an integrated, industrialised and self-reliant Africa.”

Radebe argues that the growing role of African-owned firms in major cross-border transactions, combined with the active participation of BEE and women empowerment partners, is essential to building homegrown champions, strengthening regional value chains, and ensuring that the benefits of Africa’s growth remain on the continent.

From this perspective, the interest shown by Camel Cement and the Amsons Group in AfriSam extended far beyond a single acquisition. It signalled rising confidence among African corporates, underscored the viability of inclusive ownership structures, and pointed to a new phase in Africa’s effort to shape its own industrial destiny.

Camel Cement itself framed the bid in unapologetically continental terms. In its proposal, the group stated: “Our vision is to become a pan-African leader in cement manufacturing, achieving vertical integration, intra-African trade synergies and regional industrialisation. The proposed transaction would expand Amsons’ footprint into Southern Africa’s largest construction materials market, ensuring resilience, scale and proximity to key growth corridors.”

That proposition should have resonated deeply with South Africa’s industrial policy objectives.

Instead, the likely outcome is foreign acquisition by a Chinese cement producer, a move increasingly seen as part of a broader and more aggressive expansion strategy by Chinese firms seeking new markets amid a prolonged downturn in China’s domestic construction and property sector.

We are told this deal will “shake up” South Africa’s cement industry. But AMF must ask whether a change in ownership, combined with intensified import competition, truly advances sustainable transformation, or simply deepens external dependence in a sector critical to infrastructure and development.

With the takeover bid now extending into the SADC region, and the Botswana Competition and Consumer Authority reviewing the transaction, the implications stretch beyond South Africa’s borders. What is at stake is not only competition policy, but Africa’s commitment to industrial self-determination.

Economist Dr Davison Gomo has warned that the growing penetration of Chinese firms into South Africa and other key African economies carries serious long-term risks. He argues that when strategic industries fall under external control, Africa’s ability to retain value, reinvest locally, and drive its own development is steadily eroded. Such arrangements, he cautions, divert the full economic benefits of Africa’s resources and markets away from the continent, weakening prospects for sustainable growth and undermining the very foundation of African industrial sovereignty.

The question remains stark and unresolved: when African capital, African partnerships and an African industrial vision are on the table, why do Africans still struggle to secure African assets for Africa?