The small town some 2 hours driving time north of Durban was established as a manufacturing industrial park in the early eighties.

Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi can be credited as one of the drivers behind the establishment of this industrial park - this was at a time when parts of the KwaZulu Natal province of were governed by a separate, tribal regime owing to apartheid policies applicable at that time in the history of South Africa.

In the eighties, Mr Buthelezi, had successfully attracted small and medium businesses to the industrial park, with extensive investments from Taiwan.

There is speculation, as elsewhere in the globe, that with the dawn of democracy in South Africa in the early 1990s, imports flooded the markets or bluntly put, the Chinese came and squeezed out the Taiwanese, both in business and politically.

The park, managed by Ithala Bank, has good infrastructure in terms of water, road, electricity, and desperate (cheap) labour.