R1bn investment for Atlantis
Mayor Patricia de Lille announced at Wesgro yesterday that Pegas Nonwovens, a Czech nonwoven fabrics manufacturing world leader, is to build a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Atlantis
AS THE City, we feel a great sense of gratitude, excitement and validation today.
I want to start by thanking Pegas Nonwovens for choosing Cape Town as its investment location.
Congratulations on furthering your international expansion, and thank you for making Cape Town part of your journey towards even greater success.
Two months ago, FDI Intelligence, a division of the Financial Times, ranked Cape Town 21st in the world on the list of cities with the best foreign direct investment strategies.
This is the result of an approach we started in 2011, by looking at the needs of investors in order to attract investment.
We developed an Economic Growth Strategy in 2012 which set out our key intervention areas.
First, we created a trade and investment one-stop-shop in my office as a first port of call for prospective investors.
This unit has certainly grown over the years and is today a fully-fledged department called Enterprise and Investment. It continues to help businesses navigate the bureaucracy and cut the red tape they may face.
We have made great investments into infrastructure such as broadband network, and we are continuing to push the boundaries of what is possible in terms of energy security.
We also piloted an investment incentives programme in Atlantis, north of Cape Town, in December 2011.
We took the decision to establish a green technology manufacturing cluster on vacant City-owned land in the Atlantis industrial area.
We created this programme in response to our recognition of the social and economic challenges in Atlantis.
There is great potential in that region because it has large tracts of City-owned land, a large labour pool, and it is strategically located on transport networks.
Our incentive scheme includes non-financial incentives such as fast-tracking land use and building plan applications.
We also provide biodiversity offsets to take care of the natural environment and ensure that the natural resources are being managed more efficiently, together with businesses.
The hard financial incentives that we make available include the exemption of application fees for land and building plans, and waiving development facilitation fees.
We also write off debt when businesses meet employment targets.
This is a lever through which we facilitate job creation through direct investments.
Since 2013, we have facilitated the total uptake of 1 039 non-financial incentives and more than R40 million worth of financial incentives.
Through the electricity tariff subsidy, 1 450 job opportunities have also been retained during these tough economic times.
Once this area is declared a Special Economic Zone by the National Government, green technology companies will receive even more benefits, such as a 15% tax break.
We are still working hard, together with the Department of Trade and Industry, the Western Cape Government, and Green-Cape, towards the designation of this Special Economic Zone so that even more green technology companies will be incentivised to do business there.
Getting this declaration has been a very drawn out process.
I want to call on Minister Rob Davies to stop dragging his feet in this regard and I urge Premier Helen Zille to inform President Jacob Zuma about this delay at their next lekgotla. Since the implementation of this investment incentive scheme, we oversaw a record, where a wind turbine company (Gestamp GRI) went from being a proposal to opening its doors within 10 months.
This proved that things do not have to take forever in government, and that this level of efficiency is in fact possible when processes are driven in the fastest way, on a daily basis.
And this is the commitment that I make to Pegas today.
Through selecting Cape Town, you have signalled great confidence in our region as a safe investment location.
I want to be able to show the world your success story as well in the near future.
As part of Cape Town being open for business, it remains our aim to fast-track and facilitate investments.
As part of this process, we provide assistance and support through a multidisciplinary team. It gives guidance on various matters, including the necessary legislation which must be adhered to, the required documents, and the expected time-frames.
This team will be assisting Pegas to ensure that their decision leads to success.
Our Enterprise and Investment team will also make sure that once Pegas begins its development process, it will qualify for the following:
●A fee waiver for their development application (both the land use planning application and the building plan approval fees).
●The fast-tracking of development applications (the land use application will take three months and the building plan approval will take five days).
The Atlantis investment facilitation office will be in full support relating to City’s service delivery mandate.
A development contribution deferral, which is effectively a R1 million discount on Development Contributions.
This is more than a R1 billion investment into Cape Town.
It is an investment into the lives of the residents who will gain greater skills and job opportunities.
Vulnerable residents will soon have a brighter future as they, together with their families, are uplifted out of poverty.
I want to express gratitude towards Pegas for this opportunity on its behalf.