Johannesburg: “Roadworks ahead” signs and stop-go traffic controls accompanying road upgrades in Tanzania, Botswana and Zambia are pointing the way to a new, efficient and integrated Africa. For many citizens in the three countries concerned, the immediate impression is that the going is slow, both in motoring speed and construction rates.
In these situations, the inconvenience unfortunately obscures the bigger, visionary picture – that the work being done on these roads is part of the development of the North-South Corridor that will seamlessly link Dar es Salaam in Tanzania to Durban on the KwaZulu-Natal coast in years to come.
The roads project – covering a network of 8600km outside South Africa – is twinned with a rail upgrade programme designed to facilitate easier movement of people and goods among the various countries on the corridor route.
President Jacob Zuma provided an update on the corridor to the 26th Nepad Heads of State and Government Orientation Committee meeting in Addis Ababa last week, where the AU Summit was hosted.
Why our president? Two years ago, South Africa was appointed by the Nepad committee to lead the Presidential Infrastructure Championing Initiative. South Africa was tasked in particular to champion the North-South Corridor, which is an initiative that focuses on road and rail infrastructure development.
The various projects of this initiative include road and railway infrastructure, physical and procedural improvements at border crossings, energy as well as information and communications technologies.
Sketching the backdrop to the corridor, President Zuma said that amid a global economic crisis, the African continent had joined the list of emerging economic powers from the South and had, over the last decade, been the fastest growing area in the world.
“The recent economic forecast from the IMF indicates that the economy of the African continent will grow by over 5% on average in the next two years. Moreover, economists from all over the world predict that Africa is going to be the next growth area in the world after Asia,” the president said.
He said the African continent had to take important steps to benefit from the opportunities that were opening up; one such step being improved intra-African trade. “The economic decline of the developed North demonstrates that we have to increasingly trade among ourselves and other countries in the South,” said the president.
He pointed out that last year the regional economic blocks of SADC, Comesa and Eac signed a Tripartite Free Trade Agreement, which combined the economies of 26 countries with a population of more than 600 million people. “We have to work towards similar agreements so that intra-African trade is enhanced. It will be important that we all work towards involving other economic regions in similar trade arrangements so that economic integration on the continent can be enhanced.”
Walking the talk, South Africa is laying the groundwork for boosting economic growth and job creation at home and deepening its integration into the continental economy, which will in turn help to address domestic challenges.
We need to create and sustain economic opportunities in all our regions, develop much-needed regional development platforms, create jobs for a growing population, and improve the general living standards of citizens.
It was against this backdrop that the Department of Trade and Industry gazetted the Special Economic Zones (SEZ) Policy and an identically named bill for public comment last month. The initiative is in line with the Industrial Policy Action Plan and the New Growth Path to boost economic growth. The policy and bill foresee increased job creation and industrialisation in outlying areas through the licensing of special economic zones.
The bill anticipates the development of new industrial zones outside of the main urban areas of Cape Town, Gauteng, Durban-Pietermaritzburg, East London and Port Elizabeth.
In a foreword to the two documents released for public comment, Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies says: “The Special Economic Zones programme is one of the most critical instruments that can be used to advance government’s strategic objectives of industrialisation, regional development and job creation.
“Moreover, the programme can assist in improving the attractiveness of South Africa as a destination for foreign direct investment.”
According to Trade and Industry, the SEZ programme is a tool that is used by many economies to promote trade, economic growth and industrialisation. Furthermore, a SEZ is an economic development tool to promote rapid economic growth by using incentive packages to attract targeted investments and technology.
In addition, the zones will act as a magnet for investment in desirable activities in specially designated areas by providing quality infrastructure complemented by attractive incentives package, business support services, cluster development and minimal red tape.
In an effort to reposition itself in the world economy, government established the Industrial Development Zone Programme (IDZ) in 2000. The programme’s main focus was to attract foreign direct investment and export of value-added commodities.
However, a number of limitations and challenges in implementing IDZs have, over the years, produced a number of lessons that have partly led to the new policy on special economic zones. Under the previous programme, only four IDZs were designated between 2001 and 2010, namely Coega (2001), OR Tambo International Airport (2002), East London (2002) and Richards Bay (2002).
Only three are operational and all are located along the eastern coastal belt, while the OR Tambo International Airport is the only inland IDZ and is not yet operational. From 2002 to 2010, a total of 40 investors were attracted into the IDZs with more than R11.8bn investments generated and more than 33000 jobs created.
The main limitation of the programme was that the IDZs could only be designated adjacent to a sea port or international airport, and that excluded other regions in the country which had industrial potential but did not meet the IDZ criteria.
The new policy on the table broadens our options – and as may be expected our outputs as an economy – and positions us to diversify the geographic spread of economic opportunity and activity across the country.
In the end, if we were to prevail in this effort, trains and trucks on the road and rail of the future, between Durban and Dar es Salaam will be laden with the fruits (and computers and cars) of yet another African and intra-African economic success story.
- Jimmy Manyi is CEO of the RSA Government Communication and Information System
