Transport Infrastructure In South Africa

Words: 2070
Pages: 9

INFRASTRUCTURE
Southern Africa moves a lot of tonnage every year with massive amounts of trade between countries, one important aspect to look at is the country’s infrastructure. It is also a limiting factor to some SADC countries, under developed infrastructure could be potentially damaging to a countries economy.
In this part of the assignment I am going to discuss South Africa and Namibia’s transport infrastructure and also discuss if there are any plans for future improvement
SOUTH AFRICA South Africa currently has a modern and well developed transport infrastructure and has a big variety of sea ports with approximately 96% of exports move with sea. Durban is known to be Africa’s busiest port and also has the largest container facility

Global or International competitiveness can be defined as the competition among different nations in trade. Due to strong interdependencies between imports and exports competitiveness arises and is a vital factor in any countries economy. Competitiveness plays an important role in the everyday lives of producers and consumers. It creates better quality products and at more affordable prices thus consumers benefit from the competition. (Swagel, 2012)
SUSTAINABILITY

Business logistics can be defined as the science of planning, design, and support of business operations of procurement, purchasing, inventory, warehousing, distribution, transportation, customer support, financial and human resources. — (MDC, LogLink / LogisticsWorld,

The fact that new infrastructure needs to be built, and existing transport infrastructure needs to be maintained, naturally places great pressure on the environment, as it leads to the disturbance of natural ecosystems. The use of road transport for the majority of all transport needs in the Southern African region makes a huge contribution towards carbon emissions, as road transport heavily relies on the use of fossil fuels like petrol and diesel. Currently steps are being taken to improve the impact the transport sector has on the environment, such as newly introduced and implemented compulsory environmental impact studies for new road development. This can be regarded as an important move towards sustainable development.
Green or sustainable transport should not only be an objective for the Southern African business region, but should also be for all countries worldwide. As the rapidly growing global economy faces fragile ecosystems that is easily affected by the use of resources and pollution levels. The sustainable growth concept should be implemented as efficiently as possible. Without steps being taken to improve the overall sustainability of today’s business activities, the future effects can have catastrophic consequences on the