SALGA re-affirms Cape Town’s status as a business and investment friendly city

14 October 2022

Note to editors: Please find attached English and Afrikaans soundbites by Cilliers Brink MP.

The South African Local Government Association (SALGA) has re-affirmed the City of Cape Town’s status as South Africa’s leading municipality on the ease of doing business and investment competitiveness when compared to other category A municipalities across the country.

In two reports that were released recently, namely, the Municipal Investment Competitiveness Index and the Ease of Doing Business Report, Cape Town came out tops on indices that measure a municipality’s commitment to creating a business and investment friendly environment.

SALGA’s Ease of Doing Business report concurred with the findings made by the World Bank in 2018 which established that:

In South Africa, construction permitting is fastest in Cape Town mainly due to continued improvement of the municipality’s electronic platform for submitting building plans;
Time sensitive investors would naturally choose Cape Town as an investment destination. This is precisely why in early 2021, Amazon announced that it will invest around R4 billion to develop its South African’s headquarters in Cape Town.
On investment competitiveness, Cape Town scored the highest on SALGA’s ‘municipal parameters’ and ‘economic parameters’ indices, whose measurement metrics include:

Municipal enabling factors - quantifies how the local business environment is influenced by the municipality. It measures the municipalities’ ability to create an enabling environment and contains measures (soft and hard data) that assess whether municipalities are carrying out their legislated mandates and conducting themselves appropriately.
Economic development - measures the outcomes of local government’s efforts at improving the local economic situation.
The positive outcomes contained in the SALGA reports confirm that the DA-led City of Cape Town is on course to fulfill one of its election pledges – making Cape Town the best place to do business in South Africa.

In giving the DA the mandate to run stable administrations over the past decade, Capetonians have reaped a good return on investment as the City has become an investment and business destination of choice for both local and international investors.

Cape Town is a reflection of what is possible when the ‘DA Difference’ is given space to implement business friendly policies that prioritize investment and business growth. The dividends that accrue to residents are reflected in sustainable long term jobs and an enabling entrepreneurial environment.

Issued by Cilliers Brink, DA National Spokesperson, 14 October 2022