By Patience Rashai

Government is set to develop rural growth poles, in a move meant to reduce rural-urban migration as well as capacitate the rural populace to improve their livelihoods.  

Presenting the national budget to Parliamentarians this Thursday, Finance and Economic Development Minister, Professor Mthuli Ncube said this move was in line with Government’s growth stimulation drive for 2020.

“The Devolution programme should embrace the Rural Growth Poles development model anchored by cascading Special Economic Zones to the respective growth poles. Growth Poles will be considered on the basis of comparative advantage of the area,” said Ncube.

“Local authorities have, therefore, a greater role to play in promoting this model through developing the necessary infrastructure and investment mobilisation initiatives,” he said.

He added that the Central Government would see to it that it provides requisite fiscal incentives, while emphasis will be on ensuring that targeted Growth Poles have the necessary basic infrastructure of portable water and sanitation.

Growth pole refers to the concentration of highly innovative and technically advanced industries that stimulate economic development in linked businesses and industries. The central idea of the growth poles theory is that economic development, or growth, is not uniform over an entire region, but instead takes place around a specific pole (or cluster).