Cape Town is open for business.
That’s the message to the world as the city continues to do damage control after a three-year long drought that nearly saw the city become the first in the world to run completely dry.
According to Cornelis Van der Waal, chief research officer at Wesgro, while trade and investment were not as hard hit as the tourism sector, it remained important for the trade promotion agency to mitigate the damage of negative press reports on the drought and lack of water in the city.
Speaking at the monthly Transport Forum held in Cape Town recently Van der Waal said agricultural and wine exports had decreased due to lower crop yields, but the impact had not been as serious as was expected.
“There was a significant decrease in the agricultural outputs,” he told FTW Online. “In the wine industry alone it was around 10%, but then the quality was much better, improving the price of the product which went a long way in making up the shortfalls.”
He said while exports had decreased, imports and investments had not been affected at all.
“We did, however, lose jobs due to the water crisis and that has impacted our economy negatively.”
According to Corne Koch, head of the Cape Town Conference Bureau, a marketing campaign initially aimed at the highly impacted tourism sector has focused on all industries.
