Port Elizabeth - The Coega Development Corporation (CDC) announced that investment projects worth over R1bn are ready for implementation in the Coega IDZ, from April 2017.
“The metals and manufacturing industrial sector of the Coega IDZ will soon roll out three investment projects, with the first project’s site handover planned for April 2017,” says Sadick Davids, CDC business development manager - metal and manufacturing.
The three investment projects currently in the process of implementation are a R650m manufacturing cement grinding plant; a R71m ready mix concrete plant, and a R350m gas cylinder plant.
Some of the projects are owned by previously disadvantaged people, particularly women.
"Therefore, the CDC is proud to be amongst government institutions who continue to support programmes that contribute towards industrialisation and economic transformation of the people that come from previously marginalised communities,” adds Davids.
The projects are expected to be a catalyst for championing socio-economic development by accumulatively creating over 401 direct jobs created and 2 472 construction jobs.
Dr Ayanda Vilakazi, CDC unit head of marketing and communications, said the implementation of these investment projects is evidence of the CDC’s commitment to advancing the socio-economic development of the Eastern Cape.
The CDC has, through all its investment projects in the IDZ as well as infrastructure development programmes, created in the past eight years a total of more than 83 405 jobs.
However, it is projected that the organisation would for the first time since its inception 16 years ago, exceed 100 000 jobs by the end of the 2016/17 financial year.
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