MESSAGE
New Special Economic Zone promises good returns for investors A message from the Premier of Limpopo, the Honourable Chupu Stanley Mathabatha.
Chupu Stanley Mathabatha, Premier of Limpopo
I
t gives me great pleasure to welcome the readers of Limpopo Business to South Africa’s “gateway” province, located as we are on the Great North Road to Zimbabwe and in close proximity to Botswana, Mozambique and the important markets of Johannesburg and the Gauteng Province. The provincial economy is predominantly driven by the mining and commodity services sectors that contribute 27.6% and 23.8%, reLIMPOPO BUSINESS 2018/19
spectively. They are followed by trade and finance that contribute 15.3% and 14.6%, respectively. The Provincial Government of Limpopo is pleased to report that both the Provincial Treasury and the Limpopo Gambling Board received clean audit opinions in the last audit cycle, which is good news for potential investors. This marks a considerable improvement. The Auditor-General had this to say: “The improvements in Limpopo can be attributed to the political leadership taking accountability and discharging oversight responsibility through robust discussions and interrogation of reports submitted by administrative leadership.” The South African national cabinet has positively considered Limpopo’s application for Musina-Makhado to be a Special Economic Zone (SEZ). A lot of work has gone into making the idea of an SEZ in Musina-Makhado a living entity, which will boost the economy and create jobs. We are in the process of finalising the appointment of the SEZ Board. This will be followed by the recruitment and appointment of technical staff to support and implement the SEZ projects. Currently, an amount of R147-million has been set aside to support the roll-out of basic infrastructure in the receiving SEZ municipalities of Musina and Makhado. We are basically at the tail-end of our planning phase of this mega initiative. The Musina-Makhado Special Economic Zone will leverage the existing advantages in mining and logistics of the northern part of Limpopo and special tax and customs regimes are already proving attractive to investors. In Beijing in May 2018, the Limpopo Economic Development Agency (LEDA) signed Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) and Memorandums of Agreement (MOAs) with nine Chinese companies committed to investing more than US$10-billion in the Musina-Makhado SEZ. Working together with the private sector, our provincial government has identified 10 major projects with a combined value of R46-billion. This will go a long way towards helping us to expand the productive capacity of our economy. We invite other investors to explore with us the possibilities for further projects that will support our effort to put Limpopo on a higher trajectory of economic growth and development. A mining-focussed SEZ at Tubatse is also under consideration and we expect to attract about R44-billion in investments into these two zones. Power generation, steel and coking plants and plasma waste gasification are among the possibilities for the Musina SEZ, while the focus at Tubatse will be platinum group metals beneficiation.
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