Infrastructure key to unlocking trade and value chains across SADC region
It is common cause that industrialisation across the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region is key to diversifying the regional economy away from its current reliance on the export of raw commodities and to supporting economic growth and employment creation. There is broad acceptance that SADC member States are still struggling to add value to their mineral products ahead of export, for instance, which is related to the need to increase levels of intraregional trade and investment, particularly trade and investment that would be supportive of regional value chains.
To support such a transition, much emphasis is being given to the adoption and implementation of the so-called ‘SADC Industrialisation Strategy and Roadmap’, which outlines how the region could move from a commodity- driven growth path to one of value addition, knowledge and industrialisation.
The roadmap, adopted at the SADC Summit of Heads of State and government in 2015, sets out three potential growth paths – agroprocessing, mineral beneficiation and downstream processing, and service-driven value chains. The paths are mutually supporting and inclusive, encompassing the combination of downstream value addition and backward integration of the upstream provision of inputs, intermediate items and capital goods.
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Source: 25TH AUGUST 2017 by ANINE KILIAN
