The Industrial Policy and Strategy Review compellingly provides context for the SA economy, but many of the recommendations and policy fixes made are less convincing.

Perhaps the last thing South Africa needs is another long-winded policy paper explaining what should be done to stimulate its long-since miserable economic reality. The country already has one written back in 2012 -- the National Development Plan -- which was meant to chart its growth up to 2030. Progress towards the goals laid out in that document has been paltry.

Surely what is needed is actually enacting policies to kickstart the economy, rather than government ministries expending yet more time and effort trying to diagnose the illness of the patient and discuss possible remedies.

Yet that is exactly what Ebrahim Patel's Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (DTIC) has just done, unveiling its 120-page report last week, entitled the "Industrial Policy and Strategy Review".

But before it is consigned to the pile of tomes on the same, depressing topic, the document is worth reading for a number of reasons.

First is the acknowledgement up front that "the role of industrial policy is to unleash private investment and energise the state to boost economic growth and inclusion". This is a welcome departure from what is often held out to be Patel's instincts of attempting to micromanage the...