The North West is South Africa’s major producer of white maize and some of the largest cattle herds in the world can be found in this region. With a wealth of tourist attractions, the North West’s scope of activities vary from cultural villages to the Sun City Resort and several game reserves along the way.
The North West is known as the ‘Platinum Province’ due to its abundant mineral riches of platinum, chrome and the platinum group metals. It is also home to a strong dimension stone sector, due to the riches of its slate, marble and granite deposits. The Rustenburg and Brits districts produce 94% of the country’s platinum. In addition to granite, marble, fluorspar and diamonds, the province also produces a quarter of South Africa’s gold.
The North West province is a mineral-rich region with attractive opportunities in the mining value chain. The large resource base supports development prospects for new mine development and associated mineral beneficiation and metal fabrication projects. The province desires to drive infrastructure investment and service delivery up, to promote competitiveness.
With 3 climatic regions, the province presents diverse opportunities in agriculture and agro-processing. The drier regions have opportunities in farming cattle, poultry and game. The central and southern regions farm maize and wheat, while the eastern and north- eastern regions have horticulture due to high rainfall patterns.
The North West endeavours to enhance links between South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and Mozambique- and the development making this happen is the Platinum Spatial Development Initiative. This initiative logistically uses the N4 as a corridor to the greater African market. While the N12 Treasure Corridor is a major node for industrial, commercial and tourism development. This is the only major road in the country that passes through five provinces.