Wesgro announced that over the last eight months, their investment team has helped secure over R1.9 billion in committed investments emanating from 14 deals.
This news demonstrates that there is confidence in the Western Cape’s economy, and that investors at home and abroad continue to view the Cape as an important business partner.
Wesgro, as the City of Cape Town and the Western Cape Government’s investment promotion agency, is on a mission to ensure that confidence in the economy is maintained, especially in light of challenges emerging at a national level. By doing this, they will not only help boost growth and jobs in the province, but also help South Africa as a whole weather the economic storm.
The breakdown of these results are as follows:
- Current investments closed for the Agribusiness Investment Unit financial year-to-date amount to R606 million.
- Current investments closed for the Investment Promotion unit financial year-to-date amount to R1.303 billion.
- Thus far, the team has undertaken 15 outward missions, including to France, China, England, Scotland, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Austria, Belgium, Turkey and the UAE.
- The team has also received over 32 inward missions, including six from the USA, four from China, three from Japan, two from France, two from Germany, two from Ghana, two from Vietnam, as well as from Portugal, Estonia, Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong, India, Turkey, Netherlands, Zambia, Brazil, Oman and Singapore.
The Western Cape Minister of Economic Opportunities, Alan Winde spoke about the efforts.
“The Western Cape team has redoubled its efforts to showcase the region’s business offering to global investors. These efforts have resulted in the destination securing new business which will boost our economy, and create employment for local residents. Much of this investment has come in key focus sectors of our economy, including agri-processing. Our reputation as a competitive place to do business is on the rise.”
Executive Mayor of the City of Cape Town, Patricia De Lille responded.
“It is encouraging to see the investor confidence in Cape Town continuing to grow. The City has worked hard to fulfil our commitment of creating an investor-friendly environment with good infrastructure, reducing red tape and active promotion of Cape Town as an investment-friendly destination with partners such as Wesgro. I am confident this investment will grow our economy and ensure a more inclusive city that creates opportunities for all its residents.”
Aware of the challenges our country is facing, Tim Harris, Wesgro CEO had this to say:
“These results demonstrate clearly that Cape Town and the Western Cape are open for business. There is no doubt that our country is facing challenges, but here in the Cape, we have the right mix of world-class infrastructure, clean government, a growing economy and an unrelenting determination to land investment. Together this makes it possible to achieve results like this.”
“On behalf of Wesgro, I would like to thank Minister Winde, Premier Zille and Mayor De Lille for their support in helping us achieve these results. My guarantee is that we will work even harder over the next few months to grow this investment total even further, so that we can help our country’s economy grow and create jobs during these challenging economic times.”
