The West Cape provincial government’s current economic strategy, dubbed ‘G for J’, has seven focus areas, provincial Economic Development Department deputy director-general Rashid Toefy highlighted on Tuesday. He was addressing the first Western Cape Air Cargo Conference, in Durbanville, Cape Town.

G for J stood for Growth for Jobs. He affirmed that it represented a major change in the provincial government’s thinking. It was developed as a response to the question of how the Western Cape government could support economic growth. It was a cross-government strategy, not a departmental strategy.

The seven focus areas were energy, water, infrastructure, digital economy, employability, driving investment in the country, and driving exports.

Regarding energy, the provincial government had budgeted R1-billion for what he called ‘energy mitigation’ – that is, reducing the effects of the national electricity utility Eskom’s programme of rolling scheduled power cuts, known as loadshedding. Water was a focus because “we’re a water restricted area,” he explained.

“There’s a big focus on infrastructure,” he highlighted. “It’s infrastructure that we’re [the provincial government] in charge of. But it’s also our relationship with national government.” (Cape Town International Airport and Cape Town Port both belong to national State-owned companies.)

The issue of the digital economy was, he pointed out, “transversal; there’s no [one] department that can do digital.”

Employability covered both skills development and enterprise development. There were skills shortages in key areas in the province (and the country). For example, Cape Town harbour could not operate 24/7 because it did not have enough skilled staff to do so. And the installation of solar power panels was slowed by the shortage of skilled installers.

Driving investment, and driving exports, were pretty much self-explanatory. He noted that air cargo, through Cape Town International Airport (CTIA), allowed fresh produce from the Western Cape, such as fruit and seafood, to be served in restaurants in places like London and New York. “We live in a global world.”

The province had a vision of creating an ‘aerotropolis’ around CTIA. There was also a proposal for a Cape Winelands Airport. The provincial government was discussing such concepts with Airports Company South Africa.