Engagement with sister city Miami-Dade showcases variety of trade, investment opportunities for Cape Town

This past week, I sat down with a delegation from Miami-Dade County in the US to discuss matters relating to our sister city agreement and trade relations.

The meeting took place on the side lines of the Sister Cities International Africa Summit. The summit is a week-long series of engagements for delegates from the US and African metros that included developing business opportunities, and creating tourism opportunities for Cape Town and South Africa.

Our sister city partnership exemplifies the importance of our relations with local government counterparts in the US, and with the country at large.

Since the signing of the agreement in 2013, Cape Town has built a strong relationship with the US that has been a boon to travel, trade, and our local economy.

There are currently three direct air routes between Cape Town International Airport and airports in Washington, D.C., Atlanta and Newark/ New York, and one triangular Atlanta-Johannesburg-Cape Town service. And through our airlift programme, our work continues in securing more routes from this key market.

The meeting also provided an opportunity to discuss matters of trade and foreign investment.

In 2021, the US ranked as the province’s biggest export market, with Cape products valued at nearly R17 billion making its way into the US. Through platforms such as CapeTradePortal.com, a digital marketplace that connects local exporters with potential buyers, the City is helping to strengthen the reach of Cape businesses, thus boosting economic growth and jobs.

The US is also one of the Cape’s single biggest sources of foreign direct investment with 81 projects from the US landing in the province between January 2010 and October 2022. These projects had a total capex value of R43,26 billion and led to the creation of 5 649 jobs.

This includes the boom in recent years of Cape Town-based call centres servicing North American clients, and tech giants such as Amazon, Microsoft and IBM. In highlighting Cape Town’s ability to realise more gains, I also shared that the City’s special Investment Facilitation Branch (IFB) within the Enterprise and Investment Department is dedicated to helping businesses and investors to land and expand their operations.

I am especially proud of our marine manufacturers’ expansion in the US market. Thanks to world-class design and production by Cape Town-based companies, the local industry is set for a boom this year with Robertson and Caine recently confirming that they have received enough catamaran orders for every day of 2023. The company’s new solar-powered Leopard 40 – its smallest catamaran yet – debuted at the 2023 Miami Boat Show, the biggest boat event in the world.

Such growth comes on the back of the ongoing, positive relations between Miami-Dade and Cape Town officials in which there have been multiple engagements over the years.

I look forward to building on these mutually beneficial ties so that we can create lasting avenues of economic opportunity for the communities of Cape Town and Miami-Dade.