The 'new'
South African Constitution writers used the fertile bread-basket
of the Apartheid-era Eastern Transvaal as the core of Mpumalanga,
adding the surrounding overpopulated and dusty Bantustans
of KaNgwane, KwaNdebele, and parts of Gazankulu, Lebowa and
Bophuthatswana.
Punted
as one of the country's most dynamic administrations, it has
produced one of the few low-cost housing projects that met
its national target, as well as developing a booming private
sector investment-driven economy.
Being
a new province has also brought to the region's urban centres
the kind of prosperity last seen during the turn-of-the-century
gold rushes in Barberton and Pilgrim's Rest.
Mpumalanga's
urban centres have one of South Africa's fastest growing employment
rates at 2% per annum, and the country's highest economic
growth rate at 4% per annum. The former farming town of Nelspruit
has boomed since being declared capital in 1995, and wears
the air of a frontier town, with multinationals setting up
offices in Nelspruit to spearhead their expansion into neighbouring
Mozambique and Swaziland.
It is
the proximity of these two countries that gives Mpumalanga
its unique edge over other rural South African provinces.
Mpumalanga has proactively developed strong trade relations
with its neighbours, capitalising on its medical, technical,
retail and specialist manufacturing strengths. The province
is by no means a junior partner in this emerging trade bloc.
In sub-Saharan Africa, only the economy of Nigeria (US$29,9
billion in 1994) is larger than Mpumalanga's (US$10,1 billion).
The province's economy is almost 10 times larger than Swaziland's
and eight times that of Mozambique.
The spine
of Mpumalanga's regional identity is the R35 billion Maputo
Corridor development imitative. The corridor, which includes
major infrastructure projects such as new road, rail and telecommunication
links, is slowly changing the socio-economic structure of
the entire sub-region. Although still a largely rural province,
one quarter of Mpumalanga's economy is already based on manufacturing.
The corridor is designed to strengthen this trend.
Punted
as the largest spatial development initiative in Africa, the
initiative has seen the construction of a worldclass R1,8
billion toll road linking the industrial megalopolis of Gauteng
to its closest export port at Maputo. Foreign investors in
addition spent R35 billion on projects including the R2 billion
Mozal aluminium smelter in Maputo and 180 other smaller projects
between Witbank and the Mozambican capital.
