The City of Cape Town says that its business and tourism sectors are “performing fantastically”.
This comes on the heels of disgruntled business owners in the CBD who complained the City let them down during the Covid-19 pandemic. Many shops have To Let signs in the windows or are completely shuttered.
But the Cape Town Central City Improvement District’s (CCID) 2021 state of Cape Town central city report, released last month, showed 400 new businesses opened in the past year. This included 37 more retail businesses, 33 more legal service businesses, and 15 more finance, investment, insurance and banking businesses.
"The City's high-growth sectors are performing fantastically, with increased volumes produced and jobs created, in some instances better than before Covid-19,“ said mayco member for economic growth James Vos.
He said call centres, boat building, clothing manufacturing, construction, hospitality and events sectors were performing “really well”.
Vos said during lockdown the City provided rental remissions and reduced tariffs for businesses renting from the municipality.
“We reduced property valuations for businesses in the hospitality sector. We implemented jobs programmes and skills training workshops. We ran smart procurement and supplier development sessions for small businesses and entrepreneurs,” he said.
Vos said key sectors in the City’s economy continued to perform well.
"I can proudly say that in the tourism and travel industry our forward bookings and arrivals are exceeding our expectations, because of our clever campaigns and working around-the-clock to land more flights and boost exports,“ he said.
“Approximately 180 international flights per week are landing in Cape Town.”
The City recently approved a R713 million economic growth budget that will, according to Vos, help grow the economy and combat unemployment.
It also aims to facilitate more 3 000 jobs in three years through the Cape Skills and Employment Accelerator project.
The City wants to achieve this by providing training and workplace experience in high-growth industries.
More than 70 000 people now work in the call centre sector in Cape Town.
Last year, the international call centre market in Cape Town contributed around R14 billion to the metro’s economy.
Cosatu said high unemployment continued to be a problem government at all levels was struggling to combat.
"Cosatu marched on Friday morning regarding the massive job losses across all sectors,“ said its provincial secretary, Malvern De Bruyn.
"Friday was International Decent Work Day and Cosatu was demanding that government and the business create jobs. Not just jobs but decent jobs.
“We've seen businesses closing down and there is nothing that government, including the City and the province, is doing to assist.”
President of the Cape Chamber of Commerce and Industry Jacques Moolman highlighted rising inflation as a problem for businesses as well as ordinary South Africans.
“The chamber is deeply concerned about rising inflation, particularly in light of the current unemployment crisis and other socio-economic challenges,” he said.
“While much of the inflationary pressure is due to global factors such as the oil price, some of the pain is self-inflicted, the obvious example being the mismanagement of Eskom and consequent electricity price hikes.
“Inflation impacts everybody, but particularly the poor, who are least able to absorb the additional costs. Bread and cereal prices are almost 14% higher than a year ago – that will make a huge dent in many household budgets.”
Weekend Argus.