Within South Africa’s economic landscape several important industries are highly concentrated oligopolies, characterised by few players and limited competition. This is the result of years of policies aimed at creating and protecting state monopolies, which were subsequently part-privatised into unregulated and underdeveloped markets. The situation has been exacerbated by the racially-based exclusion of potential entrants.
South Africa’s re-emergence into the international marketplace coincided with globalisation on an unprecedented scale. The liberalisation of local markets coincided with a need to boost domestic firms’ ability to compete with international players at home and abroad, which did little to rein in the inherited power of many firms.
