Over the past two decades the South African economy experienced a fair amount of structural change. Prominent among these was the declining share of the goods producing industries in the total economy, which is not dissimilar to trends observed in most of the industrialised economies of the world. The end to the political and economic isolation of the country in the early 1990s, together with factors such as continuous technological change, trade liberalisation and globalisation, contributed substantially to the steady transformation of the South African economy.This note is a review of some of the key developments in South Africa’s manufacturing sector. The discussion focuses on longer-term developments during the past two decades as well as on the cyclical behaviour of the manufacturing sector. In the second section the evolution over time of gross value added is reviewed. The third section deals with changes in gross fixed capital formation, followed by notes on the changes in the distribution of factor income and saving. This is followed by a discussion of employment trends, whereas the final section contains some concluding observations.