Online Reporter
Nqobile Bhebhe
Zimpapers Business Hub
BULAWAYO’s business community has praised the Government’s plan to establish Integrated Provincial Special Economic Zones (IPSEZs), calling it a landmark move with great potential to rejuvenate the city’s industry after years of decline.
Overall, this initiative is expected to boost local economic growth, promote industrialisation and create sustainable jobs across the country.
A special economic zone is a designated area within a country that operates under different economic regulations to encourage investment.
Typically, SEZs offer incentives such as tax breaks, simplified customs procedures and streamlined administrative processes to encourage businesses to establish operations within designated areas.
By decentralising industrial development and aligning key economic activities with provincial strengths, the Government expects the initiative to boost productivity, strengthen value chains and contribute to the attainment of upper-middle-income status by 2030.
Last week, the Cabinet approved the framework for establishing the Integrated Provincial Special Economic Zones.
The framework seeks to create a nationwide network of Special Economic Zones tailored to each province’s natural resource base, industrial potential and comparative advantage.
At the heart of the strategy is a deliberate shift away from concentrated economic activity in a few urban centres towards geographically distributed industrial ecosystems designed to ensure “no one” and “no place is left behind”.
The Government believes the model could become a catalyst for accelerated industrialisation, export growth, employment creation and value addition while reducing regional economic disparities.
Unlike traditional Special Economic Zones that often operate as standalone industrial parks, the IPSEZ model is designed around integrated production clusters linking upstream production, midstream processing, downstream manufacturing, logistics, infrastructure and services.
Founding partner of Southern Africa Business Initiative (SABI), Mr Darlington Nyika, said the IPSEZs come at a very appropriate time when the Bulawayo business community and SABI have been pushing for the reinvention, remodelling, redefinition and re-industrialisation of the City of Bulawayo’s industrial hub.
“We have been lobbying for the construction of the high-tech, eco-sensitive mixed-use commercial complex slash industrial park as a gateway to the reinvention of our industrial hub.
“With this Cabinet approval, we are now at a point where we are ready by way of a public-private partnership to roll out a comprehensive, robust industrialisation agenda which seeks to re-establish the city and province of Bulawayo’s industrial hub as a springboard for economic development and growth not only in Zimbabwe but in the entire Southern African region and beyond.
“So this is a very welcome development and we are more than motivated. We are inspired; we see that the Government is taking into consideration the efforts that we are making on the ground.”
