Work is due to start this year
on one of the most visible
investments in the Coega
Industrial Development Zone
(IDZ) – a R200-million
assembly plant for China’s
First Automotive Works,
which is situated alongside
the N2.
This will help boost local
confidence in the IDZ. Little
action is visible from the
freeway despite ten years
of promise of its sparking
economic growth in Port
Elizabeth and surrounds.
However, the IDZ is
currently home to 21
operational investors
amounting to R1.2 billion
in investment, according
to Ayanda Vilakazi, Coega
Development Corporation
(CDC) head of marketing and
communications.
“Obviously, the financial
year 2012 is still in progress
and it’s easier to measure the
outcomes of the 2011/2012
performance, but the feeling
is that 2011 was a tipping
point and that its precedents
and investments are going to
define the future of the Coega
IDZ in the next three to five
years,” he says.
Lease agreements
have been signed with an
additional 15 investors,
bringing the total to 36.
Of these, the majority of
logistics-related investments
are in the Nelson Mandela
Bay Logistics Park situated
alongside the Volkswagen
factory in Uitenhage. They
mainly supply just in time
components to VW.
A further R7.5 billion
in investment is in
implementation stage.
Projects in negotiation stage
are valued at R8.1 billion
and those under feasibility
account for R116.3 billion,
he says.
The biggest success in
terms of job creation in the
region is the agro industrial
sector. Close to 25 000
seasonal and semi-permanent
rural jobs in the region are
linked to food processing
companies in the Coega IDZ,
according to Vilakazi.
Total operational and direct
jobs within the IDZ stand at
around 3 700.
Responding to questions
about the “slow” progress
of Coega, Vilakazi says the
CDC was told from the outset
to look 50-75 years into the
future.
“Effectively, we were
planning the new industrial
heartland of the Nelson
Mandela Bay Municipality
(NMBM), and arguably the
Eastern Cape and South
Africa, for the 21st and 22nd
centuries.
“So success on
development projects is really
measured in retrospect. The
Coega IDZ is only 13 years
into that initial 50-75-year
future and the impact of
sustained careful planning is
beginning to yield the fruits
of investment, against the
odds and in spite of policy
limitations.”
Those ‘limitations’, FTW
understands, include the
absence of competitive
incentives being offered by
the South African government
in order to attract foreign
direct investment in the face
of competition from hundreds
of other IDZs or their
equivalent around the world.
As a government-funded
and owned development
company, the CDC has been
largely silent on the matter.
“We are guided by the
policies and incentives as
offered by the dti. They have
played a pivotal role
in securing investments,”
he says.
INSERT
‘Lease agreements
have been signed
with an additional 15
investors, bringing the
total to 36.’
