With 40 000 new jobs created in the last quarter of 2015, the Western Cape’s unemployment rate has fallen to 19.4 percent, the lowest of the country’s nine provinces.
But the challenge for Cape Town, Mayor Patricia de Lille told a business breakfast on Friday, was to match heavy-hitting global investment destinations such as New York, Vancouver and Sydney.
The breakfast marked the formal launch of the city’s 10th Economic Performance Indicators for Cape Town (Epic) report. De Lille said she was encouraged by the approving assessment a week ago of international rating agency Moody’s.
The agency commended the city for its “consistent cash flow management and high revenue collection rates in recent years”, noting this had “enabled the city of Cape Town to consolidate its strong fiscal position and further strengthen its already robust liquidity position”.
If the same was not true for the rest of the country, De Lille said, it was mistaken to think that Cape Town was competing with the rest of South Africa.
“We want to see South Africa succeed, and we are making our contribution to ensure that at a national level the country gets back to where it can be.”
Saturday Argus