East London - The Eastern Cape economy will suffer a huge blow if urgent steps are not taken to stop the decline of industrialisation in the province.
Economic Development MEC Mcebisi Jonas said the province was "facing a very real challenge of de-industrialisation" which should be addressed in the Department of Trade and Industry's (dti) proposed Special Economic Zones (SEZ) Bill.
"This problem needs to be prioritised and urgent steps need to be taken to ensure that our people don't lose their jobs. We don't want to lose any more skilled labour and end up with a problem of special imbalances," said Jonas.
He was addressing dti representatives, Coega and East London industrial development zone officials, local business people and the public during the third leg of the department's stakeholder engagement workshops at the East London Industrial Development Zone on Monday.
He said the province's two IDZs would benefit from the Bill as it would make some of the zones' policy frameworks more consistent and transparent to the public and potential investors.
Workshop chairperson Kaya Ngqaka said the Bill, which would see government providing support to specifically targeted economic activities around the country, would be an effective tool for long-term industrial and economic development in the country.
"Special Economic Zones also create an enabling and sustainable environment in order for foreign and domestic direct investment to thrive, while also building targeted industries, developing regions and building industrial infrastructure," added Ngqaka.
He said one of the challenges facing IDZs in the country was design, whereby IDZs could only be situated in a few regions located close to an airport or seaport.
Other challenges, he said, included the nature of support IDZs receive, which has seen government putting emphasis on infrastructure while ignoring other critical support areas, poor planning and co-ordination among the IDZs and failure to plan long-term.
East London IDZ chairman Zolile Tini said the SEZ Bill would clearly establish the roles and responsibilities of IDZs', but warned that "the framework mustn't be opened too wide, too quickly, because IDZs might lose their core value and reason for their establishment".
Since 2000, four IDZs have been completed, with construction on the Saldanha Bay IDZ in the Western Cape currently underway.
The projects have seen dti contributing over R5 billion to the IDZs' construction, with an additional R12 billion having been invested by local and foreign investors in 40 projects countrywide, creating over 33 000 jobs.
Ngqaka said the dti would like the Bill to be submitted to Parliament by September this year and urged the public to send their input to sezbill@thedti.gov.za before March 22.
