The City of Cape Town is open for business by sea and by air, according to James Vos, Mayco member for economic growth.
“As a city, we understand the importance of attracting more flights and more vessels to our shores. The two blue economies are important to Cape Town, which has made a commitment to grow its economy by boosting exports.”
Speaking at an Exporters’ Club Western Cape (ECWC) event at the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC), Vos said this was not always easy to deliver as some of the levers were not in the hands of the city - such as the airport which was the domain of the Airports Company of South Africa, and the port, also the domain of the national government.
“As a city government, however, we are playing our part in making a growth coalition work and solving some of the challenges we see in the air and port spaces. We acknowledge the importance of private sector involvement, working with all three tiers of government,” said Vos. “As a country, we face some grave challenges. Ongoing load-shedding this past week has highlighted this, despite our best efforts to mitigate this in the city. We face multiple challenges of this nature – rail, ports, airports, safety – all of which have a direct impact on how we do business and connect to other markets around the world.”
He said with the majority of the city’s exports moving out via the Port of Cape Town, mitigating some of the challenges experienced by the port took precedence. “We need to take urgent steps when it comes to the port and we are encouraged by what we hear from Transnet National Ports Authority. We believe that to see the necessary changes we will have to increase collaboration between the private and public sectors. We also need to move towards elements of privatisation.”
He said there was no reason why Cape Town could not also see a new management model as was being discussed by the government at present for the Port of Durban.
“We have met with stakeholders in key export sectors and they all want to be part of the solution. We have reached out to the national minister of public enterprises who has graciously accepted a meeting invitation from us and we are hopeful to sit down and discuss some of the challenges at our port.”
Vos said the City had met with delegates from the European Union (EU) last week to discuss some of the untapped opportunities under the EU SADC trade agreement, and there was huge potential for exporters- but it required well-functioning logistics, especially efficient ports.
“South African companies stand to generate up to R840 billion if they take full advantage of this trade agreement. We need to explore these opportunities, grow our economy and create jobs.”
