Some governments in the southern African region are adopting export processing zones (EPZs) as part of national liberalization programmes to open up and integrate their economies directly into the global economy. EPZs are seen to be devices to turn countries away from inward-looking import substitution industrialization towards export-led growth. However, as devices for national economic development, EPZs are problematic. Furthermore, in the context of current programmes and future prospects for southern African economic cooperation and integration, the creation of EPZs could cause complications and even potential conflict in three main areas: trade, investment and industrialization. Faced with the choice between unilateral free trade enclaves or a multilateral regional trade strategy, competing foreign investment schemes or coordinated regional investment strategies, and monoculture enclaves or diversified and integrated production economies, the governments of the region could do well to recognize that EPZs are invariably the less propitious option. EPZs could also impede regional programmes for more strategically conceived joint approaches by the countries of southern Africa to achieve more advantageous (or even merely less disadvantageous) interactions with, and positioning in, the liberalized global economy. Notes, ref.
