The Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (DTIC) last month confirmed that it had, so far, spent R511-million on the Industrial Parks Revitalisation Programme, which was established in 2016 to deal with the insufficient resources available from local and provincial government to maintain industrial parks.

In a Parliamentary reply, the DTIC said no concessions had been made available from provincial or local government as yet.

“The DTIC has been facilitating yearly symposia involving all the industrial parks, as well as the local municipalities and provincial representatives, to strengthen collaboration across the different spheres of government, including the development of future funding models for the sustainability of the industrial parks.

“Concessions and other forms of support from local and provincial governments are envisaged to form part of the funding models. However, modalities for such funding still require appropriate consultation,” the DTIC stated.

Responding to whether there are incentives available for businesses to conduct business in the parks or that want to invest in the parks, the department said there were no special incentives available to businesses in industrial parks, other than the suite of incentives available to businesses through the DTIC.

The DTIC had hosted a number of workshops in industrial parks to raise awareness of these incentives.

The department was also considering the viability of extending some of the incentives available to investors in the special economic zones to existing and potential investors in industrial parks.

Additionally, the DTIC is developing an investor handbook for the various industrial parks and has planned an investment promotion trip to parts of Asia, which is scheduled for October.

The department stated that the businesses in the industrial parks received support from Invest South Africa, which complemented the work done by various provincial agencies.