EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Introduction
The central challenge in reaping greater benefits from globalization lies in improving the investment climate - that is, in providing sound regulation in industry, including the promotion of competition; in overcoming bureaucratic delay and inefficiency; in fighting corruption; and in improving the quality of infrastructure. For these reasons the investment climate itself is a key issue for poverty reduction." Sir Nicholas Stern (Investment Climate Survey, The World Bank, March, 2001). A good investment climate is central to growth and poverty reduction. A vibrant private sector creates jobs, provides the goods and services needed to improve living standards, and contributes taxes necessary for public investment in health, education, and other services. But too often governments stunt the size of those contributions by creating unjustified risks, costs, and barriers to competition." François Bourguignon (World Development Report, 2005).

Background
The key objective of KwaZulu-Natal Investment Climate Survey was to assess and to discuss the investment climate at a Provincial level and focusing on Durban, Pietermaritzburg and Richards Bay, Port Shepstone and Newcastle. This exercise would draw on the Investment Climate Assessments produced by the World Bank Group. More specifically, the project attempts to address the following: (i) review the state of the economy in Kwazulu-Natal; (ii) identify the key constraints impacting on firms operating in the designated regions; (iii) evaluate the state of innovativeness of firms and how this relates to competitiveness; (iv) evaluate the primary challenges associated with firm performance, and (v) identify appropriate intervention strategies that will alleviate obstacles and improve firm productivity and help ease doing business in the region.

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