SPEECH BY THE CITY’S MAYORAL COMMITTEE MEMBER FOR ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITIES AND ASSET MANAGEMENT, ALDERMAN JAMES VOS

Note: The following is an excerpt from a speech delivered by Alderman James Vos at the 11^th Africa PPP Conference, at the Westin Hotel Cape Town, from 22 – 24 October 2019.

Good morning ladies and gentlemen.

It is an honour to represent the City of Cape Town at the 11th Africa PPP (Infrastructure Investment Partnerships) Conference.

My task here today is two-fold: to welcome you to our beautiful city, and to present a convincing infrastructure business case for Cape Town.

As South Africa’s oldest city, Cape Town certainly is not outdated in terms of infrastructure and development across all sectors.

Apart from its exceptional beauty and world-class tourist attractions, it is increasingly becoming a popular place to study, work, live and invest.

We are committed to growing and developing entrepreneurs who start up their businesses in the city.

As a City, we invest close to R8,5 billion annually on building maintenance, new infrastructure and transport solutions.

The City has also made significant advances in harnessing the power of technology to become Africa’s Tech hub. To date, fibre-optic cables with a combined length of over 800 km have been installed, providing accelerated internet access to businesses and thousands of residents. The City is also making use of micro-trenching technology to install fibre-optic cabling in the Cape Town CBD.

Cape Town as a metropolitan city is braced for an amazing entry into the 2020’s and beyond.

One of my priorities, to ensure that we remain an inclusive city, has been the revision of the City’s Inclusive Economic Growth Strategy.

Given the fact that we need to stay abreast of global developments to keep up with market trends, it is important for the City to update its economic agenda in order to position ourselves globally as a competitive economy.

Overall sentiment is that we should invest in programmes, projects and sectors that drive demand and makes business sense.

Therefore, Cape Town is home to a thriving green economy, situated in the Atlantis Special Economic Zone, which has earned the city the title of Africa’s ‘green economy hub.’ The SEZ was established to unlock the underlying economic value of existing and underutilised infrastructure through the creation of a greentech manufacturing hub.

The Atlantis SEZ is expected to attract approximately R3,7 billion (US$ 262 million) in investment over the next 10 years.

Being a conference about infrastructure, I am excited to share news about the airport expansion, a massive R7 billion programme over the next five years.

Efficient airport infrastructure definitely forms the backbone of a city’s economy. The new runway and airport buildings will increase its landings and departures to 45 aircraft per hour.

I am eagerly awaiting the much anticipated direct flight from New York to Cape Town, scheduled to arrive on 16 December this year; an achievement through our participation in the Air Access programme.

The result:

• We will be able to leverage our partnerships with New York and United Airlines to grow the US market
• 24 000 additional inbound passengers creating approximately 900 jobs in the first year
• A welcome R421 million boost to the local economy

We need to challenge our thinking and adjust our plans regularly to ensure that they keep pace with the changing trade needs.

I wish all the delegates well and I hope you get the opportunity to explore our beautiful city!

Thank you.