Driving the city’s business community since 2001 is Invest Durban. Recommended by the Durban City Council and organized private business, Invest Durban has become the ‘First Stop Shop’ to stimulate new investment in the Durban metropolis.
Acting as a partner between the Metro City Council and the private business sector, Invest Durban offers free investor advisory services and key promotion, facilitation and aftercare services between all investment stakeholders.
Invest Durban delivers a world-class Metro based investor support service, encompassing four part business mandates;
- Investment promotion and marketing.
- Foreign investment identification, attraction and facilitation.
- FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) aftercare and expansion.
- Investment advocacy.
Invest Durban plays an important role in creating economic growth and works closely with organizations such as the Department of Trade and Industry (including Invest South Africa), Trade and Investment KZN (TIKZN), the Durban Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the KZN Growth Coalition, and State-Owned Enterprises such as Dube TradePort, the DBSA, IDC, Eskom and ACSA.
Attracting Investors
The key drivers to bring investment to Durban are three-fold:
- A Premium Destination. Durban provides a business and lifestyle environment which is conducive to profitability, sustainability and with ample land available.
- Catalytic Projects. These have the potential to shift the socio-economic landscape and trigger a series of investments across several sectors.
- Priority Sectors. These receive the focus of planners in a variety of ways, including the creation of clusters and the development of value chains to promote new ventures and investment opportunities.
Catalytic Projects
Durban is working on a number of large-scale projects that have the potential to make a regional impact.
The location of these projects is vital as they must either be on national trade routes or should help to break down the old apartheid living/working dynamics.
Recommended by the Durban City Council and organized private business, Invest Durban has become the ‘First Stop Shop’ to stimulate new investment in the Durban metropolis.
Projects are selected for their scale in terms of job creation, investment size and potential revenue creation. Ideally, the projects should include a combination of uses (retail, commercial and housing, for example) and should fit with the United Nations ‘Sustainable Development Goals’.
The Point Waterfront Development fits the category of a catalytic project. Some projections put the potential investment value at R40-billion and the expected number of permanent jobs to be created at 6,750. It is an ambitious plan that is already linking the city’s beach promenade and the harbour.
The Point Waterfront Development offers a property use mix of office space, retail shops, residential dwellings and leisure options and the 55 hectare site has already seen significant investment. A new cruise line terminal in the harbour, backing on to the Point will dovetail well with the new atmosphere of the precinct.
Other major projects include:
- GO!Durban This transport oriented development has already seen major road upgrades which will act as trade enablers.
- Centrum Government Precinct This project will formalize the relationship between buildings such as the International Convention Centre (and extensions) and a related hotel, library, council chambers and the redevelopment of Gugu Dlamini Park.
- Cornubia This 1,300 hectares integrated human settlement development north of Durban is a partnership between Tongaat Hulett Development, the human settlement departments at national and provincial level and eThekwini municipality.
- Dube TradePort This is the multi-modal facility at King Shaka International Airport.
Cluster Initiatives
Durban has a very diverse economic landscape and incorporates many large-scale enterprises.
Cooperation between the public and private sectors is formalized by the large number of ‘cluster initiatives’ which aim to draw to together experience and expertise from commerce and industry, labor organizations, government and academia.
Manufacturing Clusters
- KZN Clothing and Textile Cluster (KZN CTC).
- Durban Automotive Cluster (DAC).
- Durban Chemical Cluster (DCC).
- eThekwini Maritime Cluster (EMC).
- KZN Furniture Incubator.
- Agro-processing development programmes.
Research aims to find out how best to grow particular economic sectors and in-depth discussions are held about how to develop and grow value chains. While the wealth of KwaZulu-Natal is mostly consumed or exported in its raw state, much more could be done to add value through processing.
Priority Sectors
- Automotive and allied industries.
- Logistics and logistics management.
- ICT and BPS (information and communication technology and business process services).
- Agri-processing.
- Life sciences (pharmaceuticals, medical device manufacturing, health facilities).
- Tourism asset development.
Some of these initiatives play to the existing strengths of the regional economy. Others seek to exploit newer avenues such as the emphasis on the environment and the growing interest in the ‘ocean economy’. A variety of projects link tourism, renewable energy generation, recycling and job creation.
There are various other broader programmes which have their own goals and will create positive spin-offs within each targeted sectors. These schemes include the drive to increase local content, boosting metal fabrication across key sectors, the promotion of black industrialists, promoting exports and the over-arching eThekwini Industrial Development Policy Action Plan.
Companies operating in these key sectors are already contacting Invest Durban to benefit from these initiatives.
Contact Invest Durban
Address: 41 Margaret Mncadi Avenue, 11th Floor, Durban, 4001
Postal Address: P.O. Box 1203, Durban, 4000
Telephone: +27 (0)31 311 4227 Fax: +27 (0)31 311 4092
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: www.invest.durban • www.durban.gov.za
