Economics

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Browsing Economics by Subject "Economic Zones"

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    An evaluation of the perspectives of government and small to medium enterprises on the viability of special economic zones in Limpopo province
    (University of Zululand, 2018) Naidoo, Logambal; Kaseeram, I.; Heeralal, S.
    This study investigated the perspectives of government and small to medium enterprises on the viability of special economic zones in the Limpopo Province of South Africa. South African studies by various scholars have documented many challenges faced by South Africa’s experiments with IDZs which prevented them from being the panacea for the huge unemployment and development constraints that the country faced. The research methodology was based on a qualitative baseline study designed to gather primary data, via a purposive sampling approach, from key informants in Limpopo province, namely, the municipalities and SMEs in Tubatse and Musina. Nineteen key informants in the province were interviewed. Additionally, the study was supplemented by the review of national and local government documents regarding the identified SEZs. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse the data, the findings suggested that the local government and the small to medium enterprises believed that SEZs were a viable vehicle for attracting investments and promoting SME development in the Limpopo Province. However, there were gaps in terms of information gathering from national, provincial and local government and the SMEs. The main limitation in this study is that the Department of Trade and Industry refused to be interviewed and informants from all levels of government were afraid of shared information being disseminated to the public domain. Furthermore, a group of farmers also refused to be part of the study for fear of losing a plot of land allocated to them. The main recommendations from this study is that the South African government should not repeat the errors it made with the IDZs in regard to inflexible labour policies and limited incentives; to formulate a successful industrial policy that attracts the investment and skills transfer commitment from all successful South African businesses and international investors instead of relying on certain ‘politically correct’ partners; government and all investors to develop a memorandum of understanding to address the mass unemployment, produce black industrialists and promote SMEs as recommended by the National Development Plan; government’s communications strategy should be transparent with regular information dissemination concerning the ongoing establishment of SEZs; government should create an investor friendly environment through ensuring the protection of private property rights and rooting out corruption and patronage in state owned enterprises and government, and finally the implementation of a business friendly National Development Plan.
University of Zululand