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Western Cape Business 2023

  • Text
  • Bpo
  • Roads
  • Digital
  • Business
  • Investment
  • Green hydrogen
  • Resesarch
  • Industrial
  • Manufacturing
  • Renewables
  • Greentech
  • Provincial
  • Infrastructure
  • Hydrogen
  • Economy
  • Renewable
  • Economic
  • African
  • Sector
  • Western
A unique guide to business and investment in the Western Cape, the 2023 edition of Western Cape Business is the 16th issue of this highly successful publication that, since its launch in 2005, has established itself as the premier business and investment guide for the Western Cape. The Western Cape has several investment and business opportunities. In addition to the regular articles providing insight into each of the key economic sectors of the province, a special feature focuses on how the province’s Special Economic Zones have the potential to shift the energy debate in the Western Cape. The Atlantic Special Economic Zone is positioning itself as a greentech hub and wants to attract manufacturers in the renewable energy sector and automobile component manufacturers for the electronic era. It is encouraging tenants to reduce carbon emissions and use renewable energy. Up the coast at the Saldanha Bay Industrial Development Zone, the provincial government has not given up hopes of persuading national government to site a gas plant there, but in the meantime the race for green hydrogen might have supplanted the original wish. An expert from the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) provides insights into green hydrogen in a two-page article.

OVERVIEW Development

OVERVIEW Development finance and SMME support Digital access is available for entrepreneurs. The Business Hub is a City of Cape Town initiative that gives advice to entrepreneurs. In the first six months of 2022, 973 entrepreneurs participated in skills training offered by the Hub. The Hub partners with Productivity SA and the South African Renewable Energy Incubator in promoting SMMEs. Access to the Hub is free via Smart Cape Services at libraries in the city or where free Wi-Fi is provided in all city-run buildings. Another initiative to help entrepreneurs engage with the digital world was launched in 2022 by Silicon Cape and Huawei Cloud. Silicon Cape is a non-profit initiative that supports the creation of a sustainable tech and entrepreneurial ecosystem. Huawei Cloud showed 20 entrepreneurs how to accelerate the growth of their companies through cloud adoption. Philippi Village (pictured), an integrated, mixed-used development, is proving a successful host to a number of dynamic small enterprises. Established by the Bertha Foundation and The Business Place Philippi and with seed funding from the Jobs Fund, it is currently home to more than 80 tenants providing products, services and training opportunities as well as job opportunities to the local community. The sports facilities and other amenities ensure that there is constant activity and a buzz within the development with locals feeling a sense of ownership. In his 2022 State of the Province address, Premier Alan Winde quoted from the Global Startup Ecosystem Report 2021, which stated that Cape Town is the number one performer in Africa for technology ecosystems and is home to almost two-thirds of all start-ups in South Africa. Winde announced the creation of an SMME Booster Fund which will support organisations that provide business development support. Two of the Western Cape’s universities, Stellenbosch and Cape Town, are among the first collaborators with the University Technology Fund which aims to commercialise innovations and inventions coming out of tertiary institutions. The UTF has financial clout as it is a part of the South African SME Fund, an offshoot of the CEO Initiative which brought ONLINE RESOURCES Invest Cape Town: www.investcapetown.com SA SME Fund: sasmefund.co.za Small Enterprise Development Agency: www.seda.co.za Small Enterprise Finance Agency: www.sefa.org.za SECTOR INSIGHT Philippi Village is a vibrant small business hub. together 50 major corporations, the Public Investment Corporation, the Unemployment Insurance Fund and the Compensation Fund. Among the businesses receiving support from the SA SME Fund is Hyrax, a company which emerged from research done at the University of the Western Cape into which HIV-positive people were resistant to certain drugs. The National Department of Small Business Development (DSBD) has several programmes to assist SMMEs and co-operatives. The Small Enterprise Development Agency is an agency of the DSBD and gives non-financial support to entrepreneurs through training, assistance with filling in forms, marketing and creating business plans. ■ WESTERN CAPE BUSINESS 2023 44

Business Process Outsourcing International brands are choosing Cape Town. “We are Africa’s BPO Capital,” says provincial Premier Alan Winde of the Western Cape. Rob Kane, chairman of the Cape Town Central City Improvement District (CCID), a public-private partnership and non-profit organisation that is mandated to manage and promote Cape Town’s central business district (CBD), is even more specific: “Downtown Cape Town is a recognised technology, BPO and e-commerce hub, with reliable infrastructure, fast Internet speeds and a commitment to supporting a young workforce. The city is home to the most tech start-ups on the African continent, and the BPO sector supports call centres for global companies and online retailers with a steady pipeline of call-centre employees.” Ian Ohlson, a director at Lufthansa InTouch Cape Town, which has been in the inner city since 1999 and has a staff complement of 573, says, “We chose the CBD due to the various options available for transport, the close proximity to shops, banks and lifestyle options.” Many BPO businesses are part of the CBD’s night-time economy, which includes a vibrant First Thursday night when art galleries and museums open their doors and the town comes alive. Cape Town hosts 60% of the country’s BPO centres, employing more than 50 000 workers. In 2022 it was also rated the most sustainable city in Africa in the Corporate Knights Sustainability Cities Index 2022 report, noted for its efforts in terms of air quality, emissions, solid waste generation and sustainable policies, among others. Currently there are 69 information and communication tech companies in the Cape Town central business district (CBD) alone, of which 25 are call centres. Included in this number are international brands like e-commerce giant Amazon, Lufthansa inTouch and Global Load Control. Significantly lower costs than European competitors and growth rates in the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sector that outstrip the global rate make the Western Cape an extremely competitive destination. According to the Everest Group Study (2018), Cape Town’s costs for contact centre work are between 20% and 30% lower than the costs in Eastern and Central Europe. ONLINE RESOURCES Business Process enabling South Africa (BPeSA): www.bpesa.org.za Contact Centre Management Group: www.ccmg.org.za National Department of Trade, Industry and Competition: www.dtic.gov.za OVERVIEW SECTOR INSIGHT The CBD’s night economy is boosted by the BPO sector. South Africa’s BPO industry is growing twice as fast as the world’s and three times faster than India and the Philippines (Invest Cape Town). Inbound customer service (55%), inbound sales (15%) and debt collection (13%) comprise the biggest subsectors of the BPO sector in the Cape (Wesgro). Greater Cape Town is home to three universities, a university of technology and several technical colleges. Other factors in favour of the area are the relatively neutral accents, good financial and telecommunications infrastructure and the time zone being the same or close to Europe’s. ■ Central City Improvement District 45 WESTERN CAPE BUSINESS 2023

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