The revised Motor Industry Development Programme (MIDP) – the framework of which should be released before the end of the year – would move away from export incentives as it seeks greater alignment with World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules.

Department of Trade and Industry industrial policy chief director Nimrod Zalk has said that the revised version of the MIDP would have a comparable structure to the previous model and would offer the motor industry in the country similar levels of support.

However, said Zalk, subsidies linked to export or local content as seen as ‘red-light subsidies’ which are not WTO compliant and could be subject to a fast-track complaint mechanism which could make the MIDP vulnerable.

The revised version of the MIDP will likely be an ‘orange-light subsidy’ – potentially actionable but with the burden to prove that the subsidy caused injury shifted to the complainant.

Speculation within the motor industry in the country of late has been that the export incentives of the MIDP would be removed in favour of production incentives.

Trade and industry minister Mandisi Mphalhwa is to make a high-level announcement on the architecture of the revised MIDP later this month. A more detailed announcement will be made in June next year on how the programme will be taken forward.