29-03-2017
Wesgro’s Western Cape Municipal Workshop, that took place this week at Spier Wine Farm in Stellenbosch, looks set to accelerate tourism, trade, investment and film promotion efforts at the local level in the Cape.
Hosted by Western Cape Minister of Economic Opportunities Alan Winde, Cape Winelands District Municipality Executive Mayor Ald Helena von Schlicht, and Stellenbosch Executive Mayor Adv Gesie van Deventer, the workshop was attended by mayors and economic leaders from municipalities across the province.
For more than thirty years Wesgro has worked to land investment in the province, and boost exports from Cape companies. Since 2012, it has also had the tourism promotion mandate for the Western Cape.
The agency has had much success with economic promotion in the five regions that surround the Metro. The largest investment deal facilitated in the past year by Wesgro was a R1,3bn wind farm in Drakenstein municipality. And the largest recent export deal facilitated in the past year originated in Langeberg municipality.
The two-day workshop was facilitated by Kieno Kammies, and was built around panel discussions and presentations from local economic development practitioners, economists, business owners and representatives from Wesgro’s partner organisations like the dti, GreenCape and the IDC.
Minster Winde said building partnerships was key to spreading the economic benefits of local and foreign investment across the province. “We have the Saldanha Bay Industrial Development Zone, which is attracting significant investment from international companies. In the green energy space, we also anticipate the designation of the Atlantis Special Economic Zone in the 2017/18 financial year. We are making good progress in our plan to establish a Mabida Legacy Route in tourism. These initiatives are economic draw cards and they keep our destination competitive. International firms will be participating in these projects, and it is key that our municipalities also benefit from these opportunities.”
“We are very pleased with the consensus amongst the Cape’s local economic leaders around the positioning of the region globally. The support of the Cape’s municipalities is a critical element of Wesgro’s success. It is also encouraging that many municipalities across the province stated their support of Cape Town Mayor Patricia de Lille’s call in her keynote address for more municipalities to increase their funding of Wesgro, so that we can step up delivery,” concluded Wesgro CEO Tim Harris.