PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has recognized Cape Town as Africa's largest potential city and ranked the city sixth among middle-income cities behind Beijing, Kuala Lumpur, Moscow, Shanghai and Mexico City, said Mayor Patricia de Lille on Sunday .
"Today [Sunday] I am encouraged to see that Cape Town is recognized as the opportunity city of Africa, but in order to keep us globally competitive, we must take the city to the next level and create opportunities for everyone," said De Lille.
An important intervention was that the city decisively dealt with the spatial planning of apartheid, as a result of which the majority of the inhabitants had no chances of jobs, good education and health care. "We also need to improve security in these communities and support business development," she said.
The city should be a catalyst for better integration of communities by accelerating the release of the 11 identified lands in Woodstock and the city center. during the development of the Foreshore highway project. More pieces of land owned by the government must also be made available for the development of affordable housing. This would bring more Capetonians closer to opportunities, thereby increasing the talent offer for international companies that want to invest here.
Cape Town status as a city of chance was confirmed in the latest results of Statistics SA's labor force survey.
The report found that employment in the metro grew 4.8 percent year-on-year. Cape Town was also the subway with the lowest comprehensive unemployment rate of 22.6 percent, far below the national rate of 37.2 percent, according to De Lille.
However, head of cities and urbanization of PwC Africa, Jon Williams was right when he said: "Cape Town is at a crossroads of African problems and global ambitions." Future success will depend on the ability to face time-consuming problems at home. to solve and at the same time keep a rapidly changing world. "These time-honored problems include access to opportunities for the majority of the residents.
"We have shown innovation in technology and more than 20 tech incubators live in Cape Town, but, as the report shows, many of these opportunities are close to the city center or along the Atlantic coast.
" If Cape Town wants to remain competitive globally, we need to bring residents closer to opportunities and be a catalyst for job creation. and investments as outlined by the development and transformation plan of the city (ODTP), "she said.
" The support of the city to the catalytic industry is one of the most important successes and this sector is also showing growth because we are investing more attracting Cape Town and more residents find work and receive training in areas with key skills.
"In the past three months, between April and June 2018, thanks to the city's support to Wesgro and our special purpose vehicles, we have facilitated nearly R1.4 billion of investments, created 1 236 jobs, and trained 912 residents, "the aforementioned Lille.
at the end of the financial year of 2017/18 in June 2018, the city, for the first time in its 18-year history as the metropolitan government exceeded the target of housing supply by 62 percent.
– African News Agency (ANA)
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