The City of Cape Town shared highlights and opportunities of Cape Town’s economy with top global diplomats. The Economic Growth Directorate of the city was joined by its Energy counterpart at the annual event with a host of consul-generals representing countries across the world.
The gathering was a medium to highlight the state of Cape Town’s economy and the opportunities. The event also welcomed consul generals from the US, Zimbabwe, India and numerous other nations.
At the opening of the event, Member of the Mayoral Committee or Economic Growth – Alderman James Vos pointed out that Cape Town must be a great place to live for it to be a great place to invest and visit.
Vos further added to his statement that as a city government, they work hard to make sure this completes as far as they possibly can. He clarified that Cape Town now has the lowest broad unemployment rate of any metro in the country with 1.83 million Capetonians now going to work.
This has remained the highest number since the stats were recorded, as SA began reporting the metro’s jobs figures. They don’t take that number for granted, because behind every job is a person, and they keep pushing for all other Capetonians for job hunting.
Considerably, these gains were made possible through the prioritisation of specific goals, that includes the Ease of Doing Business programme which aims at cutting municipal red tape; workforce development initiatives to upskill residents and connect them with jobs; and enable the tourism industry which is in central of Cape Town’s economy and a springboard to cross-industry investments.
According to James Vos, these building blocks achieved double-digit growth in key sectors. As they focus on everyday work, with the incredible team in the City.
For Vos, success of the efforts is evident in the reach and gains of foreign direct investment into Cape Town: Between January 2003 and July 2023, 744 global FDI projects that occurred in the metro, and represented an estimated total capital investment of R114,76 billion.
Furthermore, the total value of Cape Town export earnings in 2022 was R111,46 billion. These figures represented the economic success of the targeted investment development initiatives.
The floor was then given over to Member of the Mayoral Committee for Energy – Alderman Xanthea Limberg, who highlighted the City’s successes in maintaining electricity supply and its plans for the future.
Limberg said that they are making bold investments and policy shifts to ensure that Cape Town’s energy demand is met with an increasing carbon-neutral supply. They are building a capable power utility, one that integrates multiple sources of energy, leverages cutting-edge technologies, and maintains operational excellence in a volatile national grid environment.
Also, to that end, over a three-year period which started last year, they are investing over R4 billion into the grid, to make it stronger and better for the future energy needs.
She also mentioned that through these investments, they aim to provide customers with greater choice, better price predictability, and access to greener energy. They are creating an environment that attracts competitive investment, thanks to the clean audits and reputation of sound financial management.