The operator of South Africa’s largest industrial development zone, the Coega Development Corporation (CDC), is embarking on a promotional campaign throughout Europe in a search for possible investors.

The month-long campaign would see the company’s sector and regional specialists visiting a number of companies in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and Denmark.

The CDC’s business development executive manager, Khwezi Tiya said in a statement on Wednesday that the industries the CDC would be targeting included the food processing and packaging, chemicals, renewable energy and business process outsourcing (BPO) sectors. 

“The choice of countries, sectors and companies we approach is based on solid market research and through networks we have built up with different embassies and companies. We are also increasingly adopting a more solutions-oriented approach, through working more collaboratively with these companies to develop value projects that can be located at Coega,” Tiya said.

Although the CDC specialises in a number of sectors, its approach took account of the fact that not all of these were in expansion mode at present.

The CDC stated that Germany was the anchor country during this leg of the investment strategy, but the company would not be focusing on the automotive sector. 

“We are focusing our full attention on the other industrial projects being investigated mainly by medium-sized companies, which account for an overwhelming portion of the country’s exports,” said Tiya.

The companies in the chemical sector being approached would all benefit from the downstream advantages of the State-owned PetroSA’s new oil refinery, which would be built at Coega, the CDC said in a statement.

While in the Netherlands, the CDC has identified opportunities in the BPO sector, niche opportunities/technologies (steel and biotechnical) exist in Russia, and the company noted that it was already working on projects with Russian companies in these sectors.

CDC noted that even though the world was experiencing an economic downturn, it still needed to engage with those companies in sectors that were looking at future growth opportunities.

“This is the best time to grow business relations, and to develop these through collaborative efforts focused on solving business challenges. There is also a need to look for opportunities that arise through realignment of investment locations because of the downturn. Although there is a global economic downturn, we have to constantly network with these companies which are looking at future growth opportunities, so that the Coega industrial development zone will be top of mind when it comes to them choosing a destination location,” said Tiya.