City rolls out Business Retention and Expansion Visitation programme

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

In a bid to help businesses recover from the severe negative impact of the national COVID-19 lockdown measures, the City of Cape Town is working hard to ensure that we not only minimise the effects of this crisis, but build a stronger, more resilient future for our businesses and ultimately the residents of Cape Town.

The City, through its Enterprise and Investment Department, is focusing on supporting SMMES to ensure business retention and helping those that can expand their operations by taking advantage of the opportunities every crisis presents.

We need to be responsive to new supply and demand dynamics to ensure our industries are best-placed to emerge from this crisis and receive the support they need to thrive.

The City is therefore preparing for the implementation of its Business Retention and Expansion (BR&E) Visitation programme which will be rolled out in Cape Town industrial areas progressively over the next 18 months.

The intention is to conduct surveys with the businesses in each of these industrial areas and seek to work in partnership with business and business support organisations to address issues within our control that might be holding back the growth of these businesses.

This programme is in addition to other City initiatives that are aimed at supporting the retention and expansion of businesses across the City as they restore their operations in the post-lockdown period.  These other initiatives include the support offered by the Business Hub, the investment incentives programme, various enterprise, supplier and skills development programmes, a business rescue programme in conjunction with Productivity SA, the distribution of SMME toolkits and the industrial areas hotspot action plan.

These programmes all build on the work initiated during the pandemic that concentrated on the immediate needs of business and the issue of workplace safety, as we want to offer these businesses all the assistance we can to ensure they are able to implement all necessary workplace measures to keep their workers and customers safe during this crisis.

In the last couple of weeks, I have visited a variety of businesses including Khayelitsha Cookies in Parow, the PF Nonwovens facility in Atlantis, Paygas in Philippi and Teleperformance in Woodstock. The discussions around how the City and the Enterprise and Investment Department can assist these diverse businesses were fruitful and I look forward in assisting these businesses to remain sustainable and even expand their operations so that more jobs can be created.

The City of Cape Town stands ready to partner with businesses, the other spheres of government, our Strategic Business Partners, and most importantly our private sector stakeholders to devise sustainable and inclusive pathways through this economic crisis.