Unlike countries like China and India, South Africa does not have the "luxury" of cheap labour, and to counter this, the competitive advantage of South Africa's labour force must rest in its quality, efficiency and skill, Deputy Minister of Science and Technology Derek Hanekom said on Monday.

Speaking at the 2009 Advanced Manufacturing Technology Strategy (AMTS) annual symposium, in Midrand, he said that improved efficiencies and better management of labour might lead to job shedding rather than job creation in the short term, but that this would open paths for new firms and more opportunities in the long term.

"We have an abundance of labour, but it needs to be highly skilled," Hanekom said.

"The AMTS, adopted in 2003, is to support the development of competencies in key technologies to allow the South African manufacturing sector to become more innovative by strengthening its technological base."

The AMTS, a Cabinet approved national strategy that relies on collaboration between industry, academia and science councils, aims to develop technology platforms that increase current and create new competitive advantages, while nurturing smart partnerships to ensure the development and uptake of South African technologies in the global arena. This is all underlined by the facilitation of the development of scarce skills and students for industry-readiness.

Through the AMTS implementation unit, a number of technology focussed flagship programmes and related initiatives have been implemented to achieve these objectives. Prioritised technology areas are continuously assessed and supplemented by the same progressive process that aims to identify future priority technology areas.

Some notable achievements of the AMTS's progress over the past year was the implementation of the Smartfactory project, which is able to offer South African small to medium-sized enterprises a low-cost measurement and reporting system that will improve the efficiency of their manufacturing process and lead to improved quality.

There has also been good progress made in developing the capability to produce high-quality castings in titanium alloys for aerospace applications.

To date, the Department of Science and Technology (DST), through the AMTS, has registered 25 PhD and 60 MSc students, with one PhD and 14 MSc students having already graduated.

Further, two external reviews were conducted of the projects in the Advanced Production Technologies Programme and in fibre-reinforced composites, both of which reported positively on the quality of the work done and focus areas of these projects.

Hanekom also announced the DST's establishment of centres of competence aimed at enhancing the innovation capability of specific industry groups to respond to major economic opportunities across the value chain.

"The absence of innovation spells certain death for industry," he said. "It is about turning ideas into manufacturable and marketable form. We need to align our research programmes with the needs of industry so that they can contribute to the economic development of South Africa."

Investigations into establishing a centre of excellence in microsensors and biocomposites is ongoing, and a decision will be made shortly.

"The work to establish such centres is a direct outcome of the endeavours of the participants in our flagship programmes, and is clear evidence of the appropriateness of our choice of research and development focus areas for the AMTS," Hanekom concluded.