We were honoured to host Alderman James Vos at our recent Thought Leaders, where members gained first-hand insights into Cape Town’s economic momentum and future direction.

Ryan Ravens, Accelerate Cape Town CEO, opened the session by highlighting Cape Town’s strong performance: 86,000 new jobs in the past year, a record labour force participation of 74.6% and manufacturing output above pre-Covid levels. In addition, tourism and investment are thriving with 2.87 million airport passengers in Q1, R6.4 billion in new investment, and a R120 billion infrastructure pipeline. Property prices have also risen 34% in five years, in contrast to declines in other metros. Against this backdrop of strong performance, but also ongoing national challenges, Ryan stressed the importance of collective action.

Alderman James Vos reiterated this, emphasising that government cannot deliver growth in isolation. It requires ongoing partnership with the private sector. Sharing the city’s ‘Economic Growth Ten Point Programme of Action’ he emphasised the need to remain focused and future-oriented, targeting the areas that matter most for investment and jobs. “We can’t be everything to everyone, but if we remain committed to doing certain things very well, we can continue to move the dial.”

Ease of Doing Business

Cape Town has developed a local index to monitor and improve the ease of doing business across key indicators from, for e.g., land transfers and business licensing to electricity connections and building plan approvals. Significant progress has been made, with a reduction of time in some processes from 180 days to under a month. This model has already attracted interest from the World Bank and is being shared with other African cities. Next steps include a ‘Cost of Doing Business’ analysis to identify areas for cost reduction.

Jobs Connect Programme

Alderman Vos stressed the need to reduce the length of time a person is unemployed. To facilitate this, the city established Jobs Connect, a workforce development and job placement platform. To date, 147,000 Capetonians have registered, with 800 – 1,000 opportunities available daily. This platform also connects job seekers who have skills gaps to training programmes and skills development initiatives. Private sector participation is essential, with businesses urged to share vacancies to help match talent with opportunity.

Supporting High-Growth Sectors

Alderman Vos highlighted Cape Town’s success in building sector-specific ecosystems. Examples include:

• Clothing and textiles cluster with over 250 companies, producing over 100 million garments in 2024.
• UVU Africa, Africa’s oldest tech incubator, that saw 6,000 software developers, programmers and data analysts graduate last year.
• Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), that employs more than 100,000 Capetonians with 100% placement rates for trainees.

These clusters are essential to supporting high-growth sectors by helping to create sustainable talent pipelines, localise production and expand export capacity.

Small Business Support

The city’s Business Hub programme trained approximately 4 800 SMMEs during 2024 in areas such as procurement, tendering and costing. It also facilitates connections with larger corporates, thereby helping small firms to integrate into bigger supply chains.

Expanding Market Access

The Cape Trade Portal now showcases approximately 8,200 products and services, linking Cape Town businesses to global buyers, with trade missions to India and upcoming visits to China aimed at unlocking new markets and flight routes. The city is also strengthening ties with Africa under the African Continental Free Trade Agreement and exploring a South-to-South trade corridor with South America.

Property Development

The city continues to package and release land for commercial, industrial, and residential projects. An example of upcoming projects includes the Good Hope Centre and surrounding land, earmarked for mixed-use development. Affordable housing remains a priority, with discounted land provided to enable cost-effective residential developments.

Investment Facilitation

The city has established a dedicated facilitation unit that provides planning, design, and technical support for international investors. Programmes include special economic zones, green tech projects, and business retention strategies across 33 industrial areas. To help enable this, infrastructure investment especially in energy and water remains essential with the largest portion of the infrastructure budget committed to these resources.
Leveraging Strategic Assets

Assets such as the CTICC, Cape Town and Athlone stadiums are used to attract investment and global events with the CTICC’s forward bookings extending to 2027. This brings significant spin-offs for the hospitality and service sectors.

Advocacy

The city continues to push for additional improvements at Cape Town’s port as well as more visa reforms to ease tourism and skills entry. Alderman Vos acknowledged that advocacy on these fronts has already yielded wins, but the city remains committed to even greater success in this area.

Tourism

Tourism remains a cornerstone of Cape Town’s economy. Currently 226 flights, the highest ever, land weekly. The city is committed to facilitating even more direct connections, with a particular focus on India and China. In addition, innovative campaigns (such as the recent London black cab campaign), have boosted global visibility with the airline partner now in discussion with government for an extension. Alderman Vos also announced a new tourism strategy, to be released this September, that will address and align with shifting traveller behaviour to ensure that Cape Town remains competitive.

He emphasised that Cape Town’s economic strategy is one of hope and confidence, aimed at changing people’s lives, be that through a new job, training programme or business venture. Alderman Vos encouraged business to stay engaged, share opportunities, and collaborate with government to drive growth together. By remaining focused and data-driven, Cape Town can position itself as Africa’s ‘easiest place to do business with’ and expand its reach into global markets, thereby driving economic growth and prosperity for all Capetonians.

Accelerate remains committed to promoting meaningful engagement among all stakeholders and to making even greater use of this platform to support both the public and private sectors. Our focus remains on delivering tangible outcomes that contribute to our shared goals of economic progress and long-term sustainability.

Thank you to our guests and members for your continued support and to BDO, our event sponsor.