24-08-2017
Wesgro and GreenCape are pleased to announce the appointment of the Green Economy Investment and Finance Liaison, Jarrod Lyons.
This exciting position will be a 'shared' appointment between Wesgro's Investment Promotion unit and GreenCape, and will help capacitate efforts to grow investment in this sector.
As a region that offers significant and world-class solar and wind resources, the Western Cape is also experiencing the effects of climate change, coupled with poverty and unemployment. The province is committed to promoting the green economy and investments in renewable energy to address these challenges and to tap into the opportunities offered by natural renewable resources.
Between January 2003 and December 2016 a total of 12 foreign direct investment (FDI) projects into the Western Cape's renewable energy sector were recorded by fDi Intelligence. Altogether these projects represent a total capital investment of R17 billion, helping create a total of 10 000 jobs.
"We are extremely excited to have this shared resource with GreenCape, allowing us to have a dedicated investment promotion focus on this vital sector. The Western Cape is home to 60% of the country’s green project developers and two thirds of South Africa’s green manufacturing happens in this province. It also happens to be the home of two of South Africa's first experimental wind farms. It is therefore of great importance to the Cape economy," said Wesgro CEO Tim Harris.
According to Mike Mulcahy, GreenCape's CEO: "The appointment will also support our efforts to attract investments into the proposed Atlantis Special Economic Zone for green technologies. We have an ambitious pipeline of projects planned (some already realised) that amounts to R1.8 billion. If realized, these investments will result in a large number of new jobs, many of them in the renewables sector.”
For more info the Cape’s green economy, download GreenCape’s annual report here.
