The City of Cape Town congratulates Hisense on the significant milestone of producing its millionth television and millionth fridge at its factory in Atlantis.
Hisense has become somewhat of an anchor investment into the Atlantis industrial area – an area which is witnessing an upsurge in manufacturing activity.
It has been four years since Hisense opened its factory in this area. It currently employs about 500 full-time employees.
We are truly grateful that Hisense chose Cape Town as its base for operations into the rest of Africa and wish the company great success with its expansion plans in extending its production lines.
Hisense is exporting to 13 African countries from its Cape Town facility, enhancing the city's reputation as a forward-looking, globally competitive business city.
Notwithstanding South Africa going into a technical recession, Cape Town remains a highly attractive investment destination. The City government was intricately involved in helping to facilitate the investment by Hisense more than four years ago and stands ready to facilitate further investments.
As part of our organisational development and transformation plan, we will work relentlessly to continue getting on with our efforts in line with our transformational priority of enhancing economic inclusion.
We remain committed to building an opportunity city that is open for business so that we can continue to attract investment and alleviate poverty by providing much-needed jobs for the people of our city.
The City’s 2012 Economic Growth Strategy has several key intervention areas at the core of the City’s investment attraction efforts.
These include: reducing red tape, creating a one-stop-shop in my office, rolling out a business incentives programme, improving Cape Town’s reputation as a serious investment destination by establishing Invest Cape Town, and focusing on infrastructure investment to create a crowding-in effect with the private sector.
Some of these interventions include an extensive broadband roll-out, pursuing energy security and growing air access to increase direct flights to Cape Town.
These efforts have been recognised internationally as Cape Town was ranked number 21 in the world on the list of cities with the best foreign direct investment strategies by fDi Intelligence – a division of the Financial Times.
We are the only African city to appear on this prestigious ranking and we are in the company of great global cities like Amsterdam, Miami and Auckland. We have now set our sights on getting into the top 10 of this global ranking and bringing even more businesses like Hisense into Cape Town.