In 2002 and 2003, data were gathered from one in every three medium and large manufacturing firms in the Greater Durban Area to help establish and assess the constraints to manufacturing growth among firms in Durban. The data collection served to help guide and, where necessary, alter local and national policy interventions. This 2002 data collection exercise, undertaken by the eThekwini Municipality was supported by the USA Development Agency, USAID, with the World Bank appointed to provide technical support. (See Constraints to Growth below)
As the data yielded useful and important policy conclusions the eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality and the University of KwaZulu-Natal are collaborating, with other local, provincial and national actors including the local business community, to conduct a similar survey in 2013. This will mean that Durban will be in a unique position of having a fully representative survey of medium and large manufacturing firms.
The survey will be unique in a number of ways:
- As researchers will go back to firms approached previously, data will be provided that are panel in nature. The data will thus consider how the firms have evolved over an important decade of policy and industrial change. In turn, the number of firms approached in the data collection process will be augmented to allow for information to be gathered over a representative sample of manufacturing firms;
- The survey is structured so as to gather detailed information from the firms. This technique allows the voice of different firm managers to be captured; it allows researchers deep insights into firms’ structure along the way. Data of the type collected by the survey are currently not available in South Africa.
A team of researchers and students will be involved in the data collection, data analysis and applied research associated with the project that is set to run over a two-year period. Professor Imraan Valodia is the project leader. Glen Robbins and Myriam Velia are the two senior researchers.
The project is funded by the Employment Promotion Programme (EPP) (pilot phase), the eThekwini Municipality, the national Economic Development Department, provincial KZN Department of Economic Development and Tourism and a consortium of other interested groups.
Large and Medium Manufacturing Firm Survey
News story in UKZN Online Vol, 2, Issue 3, 5 Feb, 2014.
The analysis of the data collected in 2014 is supported by the Programme to Support Pro-Poor Policy Development (PSPPD) Phase II, a partnership between the South African Presidency and the European Union under the Programme Addressing the Poverty and Inequality Challenge. This was secured under the NRF/DST-funded SARChI Chair in Applied Poverty Reduction Assessment.
Staff Members