‘Chamber committed to driving growth’

The Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber is working with partners to ensure projects with high value and high impact drive economic growth.

This was said by chamber CEO Nomkhita Mona at the body’s annual banquet on Friday.

Mona said the organisation continued to champion issues that affected the metro’s businesses.

These include projects to open up access to the region, as well as initiatives to support SMEs. “We’ve also been engaging with the metro to collaborate on the setting up of Baygrow – a hub which will include a one-stopshop for investment promotion,” Mona said.

“We appreciate the need to facilitate red tape removal – which is why we’ve set up a helpdesk to promote the ease of doing business for both existing and potential investors.”

Chamber board chair and VW SA managing director Thomas Schaefer called on stakeholders to work together to ensure the metro was one that was conducive to investment.

To do that, he said collaboration and a shared vision was needed.

“What we lack is a common vision for all South Africans to buy into, [so we can] work towards one goal. “The same goes for our metro. “While we may not be able to influence the vision for the country, we certainly can influence a common vision for our metro as a great place to do business, and thus to invest and live in,” Schaefer said.