In an attempt to address infrastructure delivery delays, the Eastern Cape government has appointed the Coega Development Corporation to assist provincial departments, public entities and municipalities to package projects in order to access funding for socio-economic development.
Premier Oscar Mabuyane announced the intervention on Tuesday while delivering his 2021 State of the Province Address.
Two of the established Special Economic Zones (SEZ), the East London SEZ and Coega SEZ, have continued to shine, he said.
“Through these SEZs we have been able to attract over R19 billion worth of investment into our province,” he said.
In the last year, the East London SEZ has completed the construction of nine investor facilities and the expansion of three existing facilities.
These facilities will create an additional 1 534 manufacturing and services jobs and these will be operationalised within the next two years. The construction phase created an additional 4039 construction job opportunities between 2019 and 2020.
“The current year will see six new investor facilities constructed on the EL SEZ Platform, while an additional two investors will be expanding their facilities in the zone. One of these will be Sundale Dairy which will be building a new cheese facility in the zone,” said the Premier.
These investors are expected to create 409 additional manufacturing and services jobs which will be operationalised from 2021/22.
The construction phase will lead to the creation of 1 800 construction job opportunities.
