Saldanha Bay IDZ Licencing Company, established in 2013, continues to record successes.

In a statement, CEO Kaashifah Beukes says the journey to create a hub of opportunity, job creation and sustainable growth using the special economic zone legislation as a catalyst has entered a new phase.

“Whether we like it or not, Covid-19 forced us to reconsider our mandates and has challenged our orthodoxies and methodologies. This has required rearranging our priorities and redefining our goals and objectives,” she notes.

It has also renewed the company’s determination to remain an essential contributor to South Africa’s economic recovery.

This contribution required re-imagining Saldanha Bay through collaboration with shareholders, investors and programme partners to devise a set of business goals and to rebrand the company as the Saldanha Bay Energy and Maritime Services Centre.

The new business goals focus on four strategic outcomes based on the company’s vision of Saldanha Bay’s priority as a place for people, prosperity and profit.

The first goal, which centres on people, is to increase the company’s contribution to local and regional employment and productivity.

Secondly, the company wants to build a strong and competitive local and regional value chain for the energy and maritime services industry to ensure sustainable prosperity.

This value chain links to the third goal – the creation of accountable professional business relationships among all the company’s stakeholders.

Lastly, the company aims to increase value for its shareholder and stakeholders to ensure they can develop profitable businesses.

Beukes points out that the hard work over the past year, especially with the Government Technical Advisory Centre (GTAC), the South African Revenue Services and InvestSA resulted in 70% of the zone being declared a Customs Control Area (CCA).

“We will continue our work with them to finalise and introduce new standard operating protocols for this freeport environment and satellite one-stop service. This helped us achieve our 2019 annual target of nine signed operational tenants at financial year-end.

“For the first time since our inception, our tenants are substantively contributing to revenue,” she says.

Beukes adds that the rebranded company has several important goals it plans to achieve over the next three to five years.

“We aim to reach break-even from provincial funding by April 1, 2023, through reconfiguring our operational expenditure to revenue-generating investments, prioritising investment strategies and by accommodating growing investment interest.

“The next phase of the company must be led from the principle of being an agent of focused, sustainable economic transformation and recovery. This requires investment in additional infrastructure, equipment and facilities to support growth in the energy and maritime sector, to take hold of unfolding opportunities across the African market.”

The Saldanha Bay Industrial Development Zone Licencing Company is the first special economic zone (SEZ) to be located within a port, and is the only sector-specific SEZ in South Africa catering specifically to the oil and gas, maritime fabrication and repair industries and related support services.

It was formally awarded an operator’s licence on October 31, 2013.