The City of Cape Town is all set to host the inaugural of ‘Doing the Business in Cape Town Summit’ on Wednesday, October 16, 2024, at its iconic City Hall. The event will bring together the industry leaders and the key stakeholders to explore more strategies that aims at achieving double-digit economic growth and fostering the sustainable development in the region.
The Business Summit will bring together the leaders of the industry and the local business formations. Along with the public and private sector professionals and the academia, the event will conduct insightful discussions on progress made in the city’s quest to become the easiest place to do business in Africa, for a day.
The City of Cape Town will launch the second edition of the Ease-of-Doing-Business (EoDB) Index, at the Summit, which will track the progress made on each of the 10-Index indicators. Further, it will be followed by a series of panel discussions focused on how Cape Town and its partners are working in tandem to develop a positive climate for business and investment in Cape Town.
Cape Town Index is built on the findings of the 2018 World Bank’s Sub-National Doing Business (SNDB) Survey, that ranked the city as top municipality in the country for granting electricity and construction permits.
Reportedly, the City of Cape Town aims to reduce the time, costs and complexity of processes across ten critical indicators for Ease of Doing Business. The Summit will include:
- Building Plan Approvals
- Getting Land Use Rights
- Getting Electricity
- Connecting to the Water Network
- Rates Clearance Certificates
- Informal Trading Permits
- Digitisation of City Services
- Permissions to lay fibre internet cables and pipelines
- Public Land Transfers
- Obtaining a Business Licence
Member of the Mayoral Committee for Economic Growth – Alderman James Vos said that hosting the summit marks a significant milestone in the commitment to creating a thriving economy for all Capetonians.
The primary focus is to drive Cape Town towards double-digit economic growth by unlocking new opportunities and collaboration across the sectors.
The summit will unpack Volume-2 of the Ease of Doing Business Index, highlighting the business-facing services of Cape Town, such as the time required to obtain business licenses, trading permits and building plan approvals.
Alderman Vos further added that the team will focus on the high growth sectors of the city such as business process outsourcing (BPO) workforce development and support for small and medium-sized businesses.
During the Summit, James Vos will [present industry performance statistics and will include discussion over actionable strategies that aim at driving economic advancement. He said, “Our goal is to stimulate meaningful dialogue that leads to tangible results, that ultimately positions Cape Town for robust growth.”
The summit will be streamed live and will have a broader participation from the business community and stakeholders that are unable to attend or join the event personally.
Alderman Vos said that they welcome everyone to tune in and be a part of this crucial conversation considering the economic future of Cape Town.