City of Cape Town’s success due to resilience of people and agility of businesses

The City of Cape Town’s Mayoral Committee Member for Economic Growth, James Vos, talks to SA BUSINESS INTEGRATOR about current and future plans for the city.

What do you attribute Cape Town’s continued progressive economic growth to?

Cape Town’s success is due in large part to the resilience of our people and the agility of businesses in the region. Innovation is at the heart of everything we do. The City works hard to establish a collaborative, forward-looking environment where big companies, as well as entrepreneurs and small start-ups, thrive.

We’ve spent substantially on IT infrastructure, particularly the rollout of fibre-optic cable; have initiatives to make doing business in the city easier; and fund and promote skills development programmes.

One of our flagship projects is The Business Hub initiative, which provides practical solutions to simplify starting and developing a small business.

On a practical level, the metro’s physical infrastructure, stable government, and fibreoptic telecoms make it a sensible destination for businesses to establish their operations. International companies benefit from the large pool of available skilled professionals and the relatively low labour and living costs.

In addition, Cape Town is the only metro in the country able to protect City customers from up to two stages of Eskom load-shedding, a huge help

for businesses. Between February and July 2022, the city protected its customers from 722 hours of load-shedding in total. To sustain this, we have also recently announced the construction of a solar megawatt plant in Atlantis, with more planned for other parts of the city.

How does tourism link in with driving other business growth opportunities?

Travel connects the world and through specific tourism markets, we are unlocking economic opportunities in the metro. We invest in platforms that increase our aviation profile because this is critical to international trade. For a similar reason, we work to raise Cape Town’s brand as a cruise destination because of the business it creates in terms of ship maintenance, the hospitality sector, and other downstream and upstream markets.

This is also the case for our MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences, and events) profile. Travellers might visit for the wines or the beaches, but investors stay for the opportunities. Through tourism, a local delicacy becomes a global trend; a design goes from Khayelitsha’s streets to London’s catwalks; or investors realising the potential of Atlantis’s green-tech developments, go from curious, to signing on the dotted line. Thus, more livelihoods are sustained.

We’ve worked hard to promote Cape Town as a world-leading city, and the perfect place to visit, live, work, study, play and invest – supporting a healthy work-life balance.

What is the City doing to enable SME growth in the tourism sector?

The City of Cape Town offers several programmes to support and encourage SME growth. One such support service is the City’s Business Hub, established to provide practical solutions to simplify starting and developing small businesses.

Through a single point of access, we help SMMEs to navigate various processes and reduce possible red tape they may encounter. We also host skills development workshops for entrepreneurs across industries.

In addition, Cape Town Tourism, the City’s official destination marketing organisation, has rolled out a Neighbourhood Experience Development training manual to help guide SMEs in developing their businesses, and to encourage neighbourhood readiness for travellers. They also host regular workshops and networking sessions for their 1 000+ members. These platforms in turn help businesses to sustain and grow.

What do you feel are the major challenges from a tourism perspective?

Challenges on a global and macro-economic level include the geo-political situation in the Ukraine and the economic constraints in our key source markets due to rising fuel and energy prices.

Diminishing disposable income and the movement from long haul tourism purchases into a luxury purchase may dampen the demand in the short term.

Macro political challenges include the slow progress in terms of an e-Visa, as well as red tape hampering fast turnaround time on applications and approvals. On a micro level, our challenges are to ensure water and energy resilience.

To this end, the City has embarked on the rollout of an extensive Resilience Strategy to ensure that we achieve our growth and sustainability objectives. The strategy, developed in partnership with 100 Resilient Cities, was the outcome of significant engagement with stakeholders across Cape Town and followed an extensive resilience evaluation that attempted to identify the most critical vulnerabilities and the most relevant shocks.

Key opportunities are vested in property developments that range from hotel investments, both in management contracts and property acquisitions as well as new built properties.

With the increase in airlift and rapid growth in

the cruise industry, e.g., the bounce back postCovid currently surpassing 2019 peak season figures for 2022/23, affiliated services are unlocked in retail, freight forwarding and technical services.

Our events calendar is also picking up momentum and we see a keen interest in Cape Town for conventions and general business tourism. Our international airport also has an extensive expansion plan, and this brings about opportunities in construction and affiliated services.

What are some of the key sectors and projects in the pipeline that the City is pushing to usher in further development?

To ensure further development, the City has recently approved the Inclusive Economic Growth Strategy (IEGS) for Cape Town. This plan, which is a successor to the 2013 Economic Growth Strategy, will serve as the foundation on which the City will further develop the economic growth systems, and create economic opportunities for more citizens.

It recognises that Cape Town comprises diverse industries that provide a range of job and growth opportunities, from clothing and design, to call centres and green energy, marine manufacturing and information technology.

By collaborating with our many valued business partners to support and grow these industries, the City has secured billions of rands in investments, created employment opportunities for thousands of people, and helped to improve the prospects of thousands more through work readiness training. Through the IEGS, the City will expand on this work, and breathe more life into these and other economic growth and opportunity-creation mechanisms.

Ongoing initiatives include the Ease-of-doingbusiness Programme, which focuses on creating an enabling business environment; the Workforce Development Initiative, to create training and employment opportunities for Capetonians; and the Growth Coalitions Project.

There has been sustainable responsiveness calls for collaborative partnerships between all sectors – government, business, communities and academia in the form of growth coalitions within Cape Town’s most high-value industries. These structured and outcome-driven stakeholder engagements are critical for sharing knowledge, planning and implementing together, ensuring alignment for the realisation of growth opportunities and resolution of challenges.

One of the most important matters that I have advocated for is the reduction of red tape, which stifles foreign investment and growth of local businesses.

As part of our plan to drive foreign investment into Cape Town, the City has established a special Investment Facilitation Branch (IFB) within the Enterprise and Investment Department dedicated to helping businesses of different sizes, across industries, land and expand their operations in Cape Town.

Since its establishment in 2017, the branch has engaged hundreds of businesses and has assisted more than 20 companies, unlocked investments worth billions of rand and created thousands of job opportunities.

Tell us a bit about the City’s plans regarding renewable energy investment.

Our goal is to take full advantage of the solar and wind energy opportunity, while simultaneously empowering Capetonians with job and business opportunities in a market that is booming.

In the green-tech sector, the City works closely with partners such as the South Africa Renewable Energy Business Incubator (Sarebi) and the Atlantis Special Economic Zone Company (AsezCo) to enable small businesses and individuals with knowledge and skills to create meaningful opportunities in this market.

To what extent is Cape Town’s reputation as an investor-friendly city driving fintech?

Cape Town is home to Africa’s oldest tech incubator, the Cape Innovation and Technology Initiative (CiTi), through which over 3 000 entrepreneurs have been trained.

The City’s partnership with CiTi, the Western Cape Government, and Wesgro – the Trade and Investment Promotion Agency – has ensured over the years, that efforts to improve and strengthen the business environment produce the successes that are seen today.

It is by no accident that the Western Cape is home to 47% of South Africa’s tech start-ups.

Another important point to mention is that Cape Town accounts for 75% of South Africa’s venture capital deals – this is a clear indication that Cape Town is doing something right.

Maintaining current infrastructure and rolling out future projects, such as current efforts of reducing reliance on Eskom, make a great investment case for the region.

What are three key aspects to drive growth in the city?

During my time in government, I have learned that empathy, collaboration, innovation and consistency are key to growth.

With empathy, we listen to our communities so as to understand their needs and then respond to it. Through collaboration, we successfully enact programmes that drive change and empower people. With an innovative mindset, we can better respond to shocks and trends.

What does the future of Cape Town look like?

Our goal is to position Cape Town as the easiest place to do business in Africa. The City is committed to increasing jobs and investment in the Cape Town economy by simplifying regulations and processes so that it is easy for businesses to start and grow.

We want to create an economy of hope and confidence in Cape Town. Our objective is not to compete with other municipalities, but to prove that it is possible to have a city in South Africa where anyone’s dreams of success can be realised. We have had numerous engagements with other municipalities, where we’ve shared ideas. We are working towards the same goal: a better South Africa for all who call her home.

I have to be a champion for Cape Town because of my job but engaging with people in every corner of this city makes me feel invigorated and I want to be a champion for Cape Town. The future of Cape Town is bright because we are making it so.

James Vos

James Vos is the Mayoral Committee Member for Economic Growth in the City of Cape Town. With a portfolio that covers matters of trade, tourism, investment, and business support, James heads up a team that is instrumental in driving meaningful economic opportunity in Cape Town.

During his time as a public representative, when he also served as a Ward Councillor, Member of Parliament and Shadow Minister of Tourism, James received numerous civic awards, including the International Merit Award.

He is also among the youngest public servants to receive the life title of Aldermanship. James believes that the most powerful instrument for improving the quality of life and create jobs is economic growth. To achieve this, his mission is to drive travel and trade to Cape Town and make the metro the easiest place to do business.

A MANUFACTURING CITY

CAPE TOWN, WHERE GREEN ENERGY, MANUFACTURING AND SKILLS WORK TOGETHER.

Cape Town is an established manufacturing base, offering excellent transport connectivity and port infrastructure for exporting to the rest of Africa and beyond.

www.investcapetown.com