BRONWYN NORTJE: Taking growth to the rural areas needs all agencies to play a role
Unsustainable urbanisation can be resolved by properly co-ordinated special economic zones
It is hard to imagine that a programme led by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) to drive industrialisation could be the solution to Cape Town’s skyrocketing house prices, but it just might be. At a business breakfast in Atlantis earlier this week to discuss the DTI’s rural and township industrial development programme, I was given hope that there could be a real solution to economic inequality in SA — and to the level of urban house prices, which are a very real part of that. The even better news is that it seems there may finally be sufficient political will to make it happen. Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies and his department have for several years been working on trying to decentralise industrial development and support rural and township economies, but with limited success. Programmes such as the revitalisation of industrial parks and special economic zones (SEZs) have struggled to achieve the desired outcomes because they only go halfway in providing the necessa...
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