The Coega Development Corporation (CDC) announced earlier this month that investment projects worth more than R1-billion are ready for implementation in the Coega industrial development zone (IDZ), in the Eastern Cape.
This announcement follows the unaudited 2016 financial year results, during which the CDC secured 16 investors with a combined investment value of R11.7-billion.
“The metals and manufacturing industrial sector of the Coega IDZ will soon roll out three investment projects, with the first project’s site handover planned for [this month],” says CDC metal and manufacturing business development manager Sadick Davids.
The three investment projects include a R650-million manufacturing cement grinding plant, a R71-million ready mix concrete plant and a R350-million gas cylinder plant.
Davids notes that some of these investment projects are owned by previously disadvantaged people, particularly women.“Therefore, the CDC is proud to be among government institutions that continue to support programmes that contribute towards industrialisation and economic transformation of . . . people . . . from previously marginalised communities.”
The Coega IDZ’s metals and manufacturing sector has grown in stature and the new investment projects will increase the CDC’s socioeconomic developments in the Eastern Cape and South Africa, creating 401 direct employment opportunities and 2 472 construction jobs.
CDC marketing and communications head Dr Ayanda Vilakazi highlights that the CDC has created more than 83 405 jobs in the past eight years through its investment projects in the IDZ and infrastructure development programmes. It is projected that the organisation would have created in excess of 100 000 jobs by the end of the 2016/17 financial year for the first time in 16 years.