The government has a free market policy, with mention of such things as tax holidays built into it. While they are not looking beyond this to the full-blown EPZ concept as yet, it has certainly not been rejected. THE CONCEPT of EPZs (export processing zones) in the SA scene has rather taken a back-burner as the country goes through its gestation of change, according to Terry Markman of the Free Market Foundation.
These export-only producing entities are designed to give preferential support to export industries, with all sorts of tax and duty breaks being offered to participants, along with freedom from many of the restrictions of labour legislation. They were seen by a number of national business/government groups as being an ideal means of motivating regional industrial development and added employment, and to stimulate SA's still rather dormant export culture. But the re-shuffling of staff in local authorities and government departments, has also been accompanied by a re-shuffling of priorities in their thinking. And the EPZ idea has had to take second-place to the other prime candidates for government action.
While not much is currently happening, Markman stresses that the concept has not been written-off.
The signs are still right for EPZs to emerge in the future, he said. The government has a free market policy, with mention of such things as tax holidays built into it. While they are not looking beyond this to the full-blown EPZ concept as yet, it has certainly not been rejected. At such a busy time in the changing SA, the groups promoting the EPZ concept have also found themselves overworked in other directions, according to Markman, along with new local authorities and government departments also struggling to come to grips on a day-to-day basis with the demands of the implementation of new policy.
With all the changes in the various structures, the lines of communication have also become rather disjointed, he said. But the idea of EPZs will not be allowed die. They offer just too much potential benefit for them to be forgotten about.
