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Browsing African Studies Institute - Seminar Papers by Author "Bell, Trevor"
This paper focuses principally on the question of the fundamental
political and economic functions of regional policy in the South African
system. A number of interesting and useful contributions on this subject
have appeared recently1 but the discussion remains in an unsettled
state and further efforts to clarify the issues seem to be needed.
One requirement for dealing satisfactorily with the question of the role
of regional policy is the determination of actual past trends in the
regional distribution of the manufacturing employment and the causes of
these trends. There is in fact a remarkable paucity of solid data on
actual past trends in the geographical distribution of industrial
employment, and a consequent tendency for some recent discussion of the
role of the state In this sphere to suffer from reliance on out of date
p
and l nadequate information. One aim of the paper, therefore, is to
c l a r i fy the question of actual trends 1n the inter-regional distribution
of manufacturing employment and the causes of these trends.