What if South Africa had a special economic zone that was actually special?
- Special economic zones can play an important role in creating new industries or generating significant new economic activities, but only if they are sufficiently “special”.
- The existing SEZs offer little more than partially subsidised office and factory accommodation, and are unlikely to generate economic activity that would not have been generated in the absence of the zones.
- An SEZ could play a critical role as a laboratory to test what would happen if the labour market regime governing firms was to be modified in one spatially distinct area.