Western Cape Business 2017 edition

INTERVIEW Focus on

INTERVIEW Focus on economic game-changers Western Cape Business spoke to Western Cape Provincial Minister of Economic Opportunities Minister Alan Winde about creating growth and jobs. Alan Winde, Western Cape Provincial Minister of Economic Opportunities BIOGRAPHY Alan Winde became MEC for Finance, Economic Development and Tourism in May 2009, shortly after the Democratic Alliance won the Western Cape Province. Winde has been a member of the Western Cape Provincial Legislature since 1999. During his first term he served as provincial finance chairman and executive committee member with the Democratic Party. He has also served as chief whip of the official opposition in the West ern Cape, as the DA spokesperson on Environment and Planning and as the deputy DA spokes person on Economic Development and Tourism. What is your brief? Defining my job is easy. I am responsible for making provincial strategic goal number one – creating growth and jobs, happen. Together with my team, we’re looking at strategies to improve every facet of our economy. We’re obsessed with making our region more competitive and more compelling as a place to live, work and play. When I came in for the second term, I was determined to become the most accessible Ministry in South Africa, in touch with business people and in the heart of the city. So we moved our office space to a renovated ground-floor shop on Long Street. What are your priorities? We have identified a suite of economic game-changers. These include getting rid of red tape so business can start and operate more efficiently; securing stable energy for growth; improving broadband access; and ensuring we meet the demand for skills. For instance, in reducing red tape, in an area like the Voortrekker Corridor space, how do we as government put pre-zoning in place? We can do the environmental impact assessment (EIA), and the developer submits a planning proposal. In this way, you enable an easier decisionmaking process for developers. We need to put the levers in place so that this process does not take six months, but six weeks. Securing a reliable and affordable energy supply is also an important enabler. In the Western Cape, our approach is to diversify our sources of energy. The Information Communication and Technology (ICT) sector is growing at lightning speed. The Western Cape government’s incubators at the Bandwidth Barns in Woodstock and Khayelitsha lead our efforts to inculcate a culture of new tech innovations, led by driven entrepreneurs, and there has been huge interest by the private sector including French and British firms on the same mission. Barclays’ Rise Cape Town supports fintech companies. They have put money into WESTERN CAPE BUSINESS 2017 72

New York, London and Manchester, and also in Cape Town. DVT’s app-testing facility just off the N1 is the biggest in the southern hemisphere. With regard to skills, we have an artisanal focus and are aiming to produce 32 500 artisans in the next three years. To get the last mile done, on-the-job training, we have to get businesses on board to offer the required in-service training component. Does the green economy hold potential for the Western Cape? We are very excited about a recent Moody’s report, which found that the green economy in South Africa is the fastest growing in Africa, and is one of the fastest in the world. The Western Cape hosts 70% of green economy manufacturing and 60% of head offices of green economy companies. GreenCape has a mandate to grow the green economy. Do you have a focus on particular sectors? At the start of the new five-year term in 2014, we worked with McKinsey and Company to conduct a deep-dive study into our economy. Drawing from best practice in emerging market economies from all over the world, they helped us develop a choice strategy: let’s concentrate on fewer sectors and drill much deeper. These sectors were tourism, agri-processing and oil and gas. This became Project Khulisa, which means “cause to grow” in isiXhosa. What were the key factors in choosing these sectors? Project Khulisa earmarked the following sectors as the biggest growth engines for the next five years: • Agri-processing had 1.8% growth in Gross Value Add (GVA) and 7.7% jobs growth • Tourism was growing at 6.8% GVA growth and 7.8% jobs growth The next sectors on the list were ICT, BPO and film with the green economy cutting across many sectors. Can you give examples of how your department supports businesses in the key sectors? We are driving a suite of initiatives to grow agriprocessing, under the banner of Project Khulisa. These include efforts to boost halaal and wine INTERVIEW exports, and to create an enabling environment for all agri-processed products to flourish. We have made headway, together with our partners, in our drive to increase water storage in the Brandvlei Dam so that more hectares can come under irrigation, producing more product for agri-processed goods. We have also commissioned the equipment we require for our residue testing facility, so that we can accomplish the testing required to export more product to key international markets. All of the initiatives under Project Khulisa are designed to open international markets for our produce. As part of Project Khulisa, we have also prioritised direct air access. We are pleased with the significant impact of the work we’ve done in boosting arrivals to our province. There has been an impressive 60% increase in Origin and Destination (O&D) passengers coming through Qatar since the project started. There has been an increase of 53% in O&D passengers from Turkey from 36 348 to 55 714. This growth is linked to the landing of direct Turkish Airlines flights into Cape Town. In total, between July 2015 and December 2016, we will have expanded six direct routes and established two new direct routes, resulting in 400 000 additional two-way seats to Cape Town. What are some of the indicators of this good growth? A total of 654 000m² was approved for construction in the Western Cape in 2015, nine times more than the figure approved in Gauteng. Absa is centralising its operations at Century City, British American Tobacco has just moved into offices at the Waterfront. Hisense, which already has a manufacturing facility in Atlantis, is working at how it can plug into the green economy. It is looking to treble or quadruple its investment into the region. Recently Cape Town received an award as best offshoring destination from a British outsourcing organisation. This is testament to the business confidence in the Western Cape. 73 WESTERN CAPE BUSINESS 2017