Spatial economic development in South Africa: an overview and evaluation of the platinum spatial development initiative

Abstract

The Platinum Spatial Development Initiative (Platinum SDI), located in the North West province of South Africa, is examined in this article. The article commences with a historical synopsis of industrial policy and regional industrial development policy in South Africa. Thereafter the trade and industrial policies of the North West Provincial Government are discussed in the contexts of its economic development strategies 'North West 2001' from 1997, and the 'North West Economic Development and Industrialisation Strategy' from 2002. Various arguments for and against the viability of the Platinum SDI are put forward.

Explaining Regional Export Performance in a Developing Country: The Role of Geography and Relative Factor Endowments

“…Naudé, 2003;Naudé, Kleynhans & Van der Merwe, 2003). There seems however, to have been less success in addressing spatial imbalances in the South African economy.…”

Geography, transport and Africa’s proximity gap

“…The second dimension of spatial inequalities within countries, however, is relatively neglected, but can be argued to be almost as important for the overall economic development as geography (Naudé, 2003;Jansen van Rensburg and Naudé, 2007). A subnational approach to Africa's spatial inequalities also highlights the necessity of different regions stretching across national borders to start planning and coordinating their initiatives for economic development (Kleynhans et al, 2003). It also emphasizes the importance of domestic transport costs and domestic transport infrastructure for economic development.…”

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Regional development of Saldanha Bay region, South Africa: The role of Saldanha Steel

“…The scheme was initiated by the Department of Trade and Industry to develop regions having inherent economic potential -but were under-resourced due to apartheid spatial planning -by generating regional sites or clusters of economic agglomerations (Luiz, 2003). SDIs and IDZs became key components of the government policy response to the national and regional spatial economic development needs of the country (Kleynhans et al, 2003). In their review of the success or not of the SDI initiatives in the West Coast, Bek et al 2004: 4found a "general lack of entrepreneurial culture within the non-White component of the West Coast population, and the lack of an effective growth coalition among local institutions to facilitate development. "…”