A R250-million new optical fibre cable manufacturing plant at Dube TradePort, north of Durban, would be fully operational by January 2017, proving that much-needed industrial development could be fast-tracked, government officials said at a sod-turning event at the construction site on Friday.

The investment by State-owned Chinese investor, Yangtze Optical Fibre and Cable (YOFC), was first announced in December and would entail R100-million being invested in building the facility and R150-million in equipment.

Department of Trade and Industry Investment South Africa division acting deputy director-general Yunus Hoosen said it would take six months to complete the 150 000 m² facility which would create 150 jobs.

He added that the creation of Yangtze Optics Africa Cable (YOAC), a joint venture between YOFC and its empowerment partner Mustek, was in line with government initiatives to focus on value addition, deepen supply chains, empower black industrialists and support investments through the creation of special economic zones such as the Dube TradePort.

This would create industry clusters that would have “a great multiplier effect”, he said.

Hoosen explained that government was supporting investments such as this through tax and training allowances.

The YOAC investment included a four-year skills development programme, with selected employees to be trained both locally and in China. Recruitment and training of key technical staff would start in September.

KwaZulu-Natal MEC for Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs, Michael Mabuyakhulu, welcomed the decision by YOAC to establish a manufacturing plant at Dube TradePort.

“As the global leader in the manufacture and supply of telecoms optical fibre, YOFC is in a good position to strengthen its African footprint by being located here, thereby also helping to spawn a local microcosm of ancillary industries from suppliers and service providers to distributors,” he said.

He said that the new, cutting-edge fibre optic cable manufacturing and distribution facility demonstrated the provincial government’s commitment to attracting new investments that developed KwaZulu-Natal’s economic prospects and created more opportunities for job creation through major catalytic projects.

To date, Dube TradePort had attracted about R1.4-billion in private investment.

“The great potential for this project to expand is also very exciting for our province and country. Currently, the demand for fibre optics in the world is 450-million fibre kilometres of cable a year. The demand within the Southern African Development Community market is currently 1.2-million fibre kilometres. This facility will produce one-million fibre kilometres of this demand,” he noted.

He pointed out that the information technology sector offered considerable economic growth opportunities with statistics demonstrating that, for every 10% increase in access to good communication infrastructure and services, there could be an increase in economic growth of as much as 1.4%.

YOAC CEO Pieter Viljoen explained that a comprehensive range of new-generation optical fibre cable products would be manufactured locally for the South African and key export markets in Africa.

He said that, with an envisaged manufacturing capacity of more than one-million fibre kilometres, YOAC would play a significant role in enabling the expansion of broadband in South Africa. This was especially important given the envisaged demand from fibre to the home (FTTH) projects and cellular operators’ migration to fourth-generation and long-term evolution services.

He said the company would supply optical fibre cable and FTTH solutions to the local telecommunications market, including industry players such as Telkom, Neotel, Vodacom, MTN, Cell C, Vumatel and Link Africa.

“We are targeting both the public and private sectors with the aim of significantly bringing down the cost of optical fibre cable in the country. Local manufacturing with a secured supply chain and an increase in the number of players in this space will be critical in bringing down local costs.”