OVERVIEW Manufacturing
OVERVIEW Manufacturing Boatbuilders are busy. SECTOR INSIGHT Hayden Cobra cars are on the road again. The need for security at sea is driving demand among boatbuilders. Patrol vessels for the South African Navy are being produced by Damen Shipyards Cape Town and Paramount Maritime Holdings is busy with orders for vessels to protect other ships from pirates in the Gulf of Guinea. Bloomberg reported in 2021 that the subsidiary of the Paramount Group was building 26 boats for a combined value of -million. The keel-laying ceremony for the third Multi- Mission Inshore Patrol Vessels (MMIPV) that Damen Shipyards was contracted to deliver to the Navy was held in October 2021. Invest Cape Town reports that the city’s boatbuilding industry is the second-largest producer of recreational catamarans in the world, after France. The city’s companies export 80% of the products that they produce and attract a positive trade balance of approximately -million annually. Boatbuilding exports have grown by 20.5% annually year-on-year since 2014 in Cape Town (Quantec, 2019). Robertson & Caine’s facility in Woodstock produces three boats a week for the international market. With a staff complement of 1 350, the company is a leader in power catamarans and sailing catamarans. Nautic Africa makes larger vessels, including patrol, defence, oil and gas platform and commercial vessels while companies such as Smit Amandla Marine and De Beers Marine offer a wide range of services. The Whisper Boat Building Academy is located at the False Bay TVET College. The Manufacturing and Competitiveness Enhancement ONLINE RESOURCES Cape Clothing and Textile Cluster: www.capeclothingcluster.org.za Invest Cape Town: www.investcapetown.com Wesgro: www.wesgro.co.za Western Cape Maritime Cluster: www.wcmc.org.za Programme (MCEP) of the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (the dtic) has disbursed grants which have resulted in 230 000 jobs being sustained. Because of the Clothing and Textile Competitiveness Programme, that sector currently now employs around 95 000 workers, contributing 8% to manufacturing GDP and 2.9% to overall GDP. In the leather sector 22 new factories have been opened, supporting 2 200 jobs. In the Western Cape, this revival is reflected in member companies of the Cape Clothing and Textile Cluster hiring 35% more staff in four years. About 23 600 people are employed in the province and exports from the Cape amounted in 2017 to R4.4-billion with sales up by 34% above inflation. A new investor has breathed new life into the manufacturing business of Hayden Cobra (pictured). The maker of replica cars is operating out of Montague Gardens and building for the local and export markets, primarily the US and the Middle East. Three models are manufactured: the Classic 427, the Evo and a Cobra with an electric drive which promises “instantaneous torque”. ■ WESTERN CAPE BUSINESS 2022 36
Construction and property An affordable housing scheme in Ottery will reduce the housing backlog. OVERVIEW SECTOR INSIGHT The Waterfront is expanding again. The Amdec Group has been in the headlines in recent years for large and very expansive projects in highlydesirable areas. Johannesburg’s top-end Melrose Arch project was going to be replicated on Cape Town’s Foreshore with the Harbour Arch. Plans for that development are still going ahead, but the development group broke ground on a very different kind of project in 2020, an affordable housing project in Ottery (pictured). Named the Golden Grove Estate, the R500-million project will have 1 000 affordable residential apartments available for rent where the joint household income does not exceed R22 000 per month. The estate will include a retail centre, communal gardens, children’s playground, crèche and a communal clubhouse. The Provincial Government of the Western Cape’s “Better Living Model” will deliver 3 602 residential units in an affordable, mixeduse and residential-led development on the site of the old Conradie Hospital on the edge of Pinelands. The integrated, mixed-income housing development aims to reverse the spatial planning that was put in place under apartheid. With the state putting in the bulk infrastructure, costs for developers are significantly reduced. The quid pro quo is that the developer must set aside a certain number of housing units (49%) to grant-funded housing. The Belhar CBD is the site of 4 188 assorted residential units, including student accommodation, social housing units and military veterans’ units. Building was well-advanced in the course ONLINE RESOURCES Cape Town Transport and Urban Development Authority: www.tda.gov.za Construction Industry Development Board: www.cidb.org.za SA Institute of Architects: www.saia.org.za of 2021, despite Covid-19 interruptions. One section of the development, Paarl Rock, had sold out by November 2021. The Victoria & Alfred Waterfront is continuing to invest in more space. Owned by the Public Investment Corporation and Growthpoint Properties, plans are being rolled out to add 80 000m² to the available space within the Waterfront’s precincts. The Financial Mail reports that recently completed additions include new buildings for Ninety One and Deloitte food market (Makers Landing). Artists will soon have their own market too. FNB, which publishes a regular property barometer, has done an in-depth analysis of previous crises to understand the post-Covid property market. According to John Loos, a property strategist at FNB Commercial Property Finance, the most vulnerable sector is likely to be Retail Property. Smaller neighbourhood shopping centres, with more essential items and greater convenience, will be less vulnerable. The lockdown accelerated the trend for people to work from home, and so the Office Property sector will come under pressure. Many companies will be reducing office space, but this is merely a speeding up of an existing trend. ■ 37 WESTERN CAPE BUSINESS 2022
