ABSTRACT
During the apartheid regime, necessitated by international economic and political sanctions, South Africa had built up a strong S&T system, particularly in the defense- and energy-related sectors, through twin strategies of import substitution and self-reliance. However, unlike the East Asian countries, South Africa did not aim to build up a strong export-oriented industrial structure. As result, South Africa has not been closely integrated with global corporate production and innovation networks. Export of technology-intensive goods is considered a measure of an economy’s knowledge base. An increase in the ratio of technology-intensive goods in the total exports indicates an economy’s growing demand for knowledge. However, as Maharajh and Pogue (2008) point out, the global value chains and production networks may present a distorted picture, as more complex activities within a production process may be located in a country other than the one exporting the final good. As a result, a high proportion of technology-intensive goods in total exports of a country does not necessarily reflect the knowledge intensity in domestic industrial activities.
