Browsing by Author "Welman, Lesley"
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- ItemRegional development of Saldanha Bay region, South Africa : the role of Saldanha Steel(De Gryuter Open, 2014-12-11) Welman, Lesley; Ferreira, Sanette L. A.Since 1970 the Saldanha Bay region on the West Coast of the Western Cape Province has been high on South Africa’s national development agenda. The region has been struggling for years to meet the preconditions for economic take-off. In this analysis the Saldanha Bay region is positioned in the contexts of global competition among steel-producing countries, South Africa’s national development plan and the Greater Cape Town functional region. The aim is to explain the nature and extent of the relationship between a single secondary industry – ArcelorMittal Saldanha – and the economic development of the larger Saldanha region. Following a brief introduction and background to the Saldanha Bay region, the evolutionary economic geography (EEG) approach and the role of institutions in the development of regions are reviewed. Saldanha Steel (ArcelorMittal), the pioneer industrial firm, is analysed by using a mixed-method approached, where semi-structured interviews and a questionnaire survey are the main research instruments. The contribution of Saldanha Steel to regional development is explored.
- ItemRegional development of the greater Saldanha Bay region(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2018-09) Welman, Lesley; Sanette, Ferreira; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Geography & Environmental Studies.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Globalisation exposes even the most remote spaces to competition, forcing firms, towns and regions to react and adjust to changing and new economic conditions. Over the past 20 years there has been a resurgence of ‘the region’ as a scale of economic organisation and an understanding of the ways institutional arrangements change and shape the evolutionary paths of economies (and firms) over time and space. The evolution of firms (economic players or actors), their creative destruction (or their inability to innovate), path dependencies and economic resilience have significant implications for their own growth performances and for the development of towns and regions. Since the early 1970s, the Greater Saldanha Bay (GSB) region and Saldanha town on the West Coast of the Western Cape province in South Africa have been high on the national development agenda. Despite various development initiatives, Saldanha town and region have struggled to reach sustained regional development and socio-economic transformation. This research investigated the roles of three main economic players – Saldanha Steel (SS), Transnet National Ports Authority (TNPA), Sea Harvest Corporation (SH) – and the local government (Saldanha Bay Municipality (SBM)) in the growth and development of Saldanha town and the GSB region. The study is positioned within the sub-disciplines of economic geography and regional development studies. The appropriate literature on evolutionary economic geography (EEG), the institutional approach (IA), the new regionalism approaches (NRAs), the neoclassic growth framework and endogenous growth theory (EGT) serves as conceptual bases and has assisted in making sense of the real-life contexts and the local and regional development complexities of Saldanha town and the GSB region. A mixed methods approach was applied in four case studies where primary and secondary data were collected. Primary data and information were obtained through a firm-specific questionnaire survey (three economic players and the local government); analyses of aerial photos and historical maps were used to map the historical footprint and co-evolution of Saldanha town and Saldanha Bay Port; semi-structured interviews were conducted with the managers of the three economic players and the local government; and a focus group discussion was held between representatives of various economic players (SS, TNPA and SH), SBM, Saldanha Bay Chamber of Business (SBCB), the Saldanha Bay Industrial Development Zone (SBIDZ) and Duferco Steel Processing (DSP). The primary data was augmented by a variety of secondary data sources consisting of company-specific annual reports, hake industry fact sheets, integrated development plans of the SBM (2007-2018), a SBIDZ feasibility study and data from Statistics South Africa (StatsSA). The analyses of the three firms revealed a struggle to cope with changing economic (global competition) and geographical (physical and human) contexts. The well-being of the Saldanha town and regional economies is related to the existing formal and informal institutional contexts, the performance of the local economic players (firms), the relevant provincial and national development plans and policies as well as the exogenous factors (eco-labelling of hake, the oil price and overproduction of steel) in the global economic arena. Other significant factors are the historical and current political settings (national, provincial and local) constraining the capacity of the region to shape its own future. The study revealed an overdependence of the local authority on state-led projects in Saldanha town and a lack of initiative and capital to establish its own placebased projects. A slow pace of the development and the introduction of new technologies in the existing and the establishment of new appropriate industries in all the towns of the GSB region was also evident. The future of SH the largest employer in the town, is linked to the biological recovery rate of the hake fishery and the overall impact of climate change on the sustainability of the industry. The survival of SS is important for the local economy regarding the retention of jobs and linkages with downstream industries, but also in South African and African strategic contexts. The future of the local economy of Saldanha town is subject to the re-establishment and strengthening of its connection with its port, the envisaged new economic activities associated with the oil-and-gas service centre and the establishment of a port-town development authority to replace the existing inadequate institutional framework. Strong leadership is needed to create an enabling environment that is conducive to the promotion of the social and economic development of the region. Therefore, the SBM has to be entrepreneurial and it must progress from being supplier of basic services to becoming an enabler of growth. This research contributes to the academic debate on the differences in economic development between locations regarding the underlying differences in these locations (predestination – geographical factors) and small historical opportunities (or chances). The published results of the three sub-regional analyses of three different types of firms, the roles of local government, formal and informal institutions (endogenous factors) in the process of stimulating growth and bringing about the socio-economic transformation of the region help to fill lacunae in the existing literature. Moreover, the findings emphasise that local and regional development are ongoing, evolutionary processes in which many and varied outcomes are possible, and that exogenous factors cannot be ignored.