Invest Durban was recommended by the Durban City Council and organized private businesses as the First Stop Shop to stimulate new investment in the Durban Metropolis. We act as a partnership between the Metro City Council and the private business sector, offering free investor advisory service, plus key promotion, facilitation, and aftercare services between all investment stakeholders.

Invest Durban delivers a world-class Metro-based investor support service, encompassing our four-part business mandate, namely investment promotion, and marketing; foreign investment identification, attraction and facilitation; FDI aftercare and expansion, plus investment advocacy.

Invest Durban works together with organizations such as the Department of Trade and Industry including Invest South Africa, Trade and Investment KZN (TIKZN), the Durban Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the KZN Growth Coalition, and State-Owned Enterprises such as Dube Trade Port, the DBSA, IDC, Eskom, ACSA and others.

Categories

The thrust of Durban’s proposition to attract investors can be put into three broad categories:

  1. Premium Destination; a business and lifestyle environment most conducive to profitable, sustainable, with ample land available
  2. Catalytic Projects, which have the potential to shift the socio-economic landscape and trigger a series of investments across several sectors
  3. Priority Sectors, which receive the focus of planners in a variety of ways, including the creation of clusters and the development of value chains to promote new ventures and investment opportunities

Catalytic Projects
Durban is working on a number of large-scale projects that have the potential to make a regional impact. The location of these projects is vital. They must either be on national trade routes or they should help to break down the old apartheid live-work dynamics. Projects are selected for their scale in terms of job creation, investment size and potential revenue creation. Ideally, the projects should include a combination of uses (retail, commercial and housing, for example) and they should fit in with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

The Point Waterfront Development, for example, fits very well into the category of a catalytic project. Some projections put the potential investment value at R40-billion (US$2.2 billion) and the number of permanent jobs to be created at 6,750. It is an ambitious plan that is already linking the city’s beach promenade and the harbour.

The Point Waterfront Development offers a property use mix of office space, retail shops, residential dwellings and leisure options. The 55 ha site has already seen significant investment. A new cruise line terminal in the harbour, backing on to the Point will dovetail well with the new atmosphere of the precinct.

Other major projects, amongst others, include the:

  1. GO! Durban Transport Oriented Development, which has already received major road upgrades and will be an even greater enabler of trade
  2. Centrum Government Precinct which would formalise the relationship between buildings such as the International Convention Centre (and extensions) and a related hotel, the library, council chambers and the redevelopment of Gugu Dlamini Park
  3. Cornubia integrated human settlement development north of Durban, on 1,300 ha, a partnership between Tongaat Hulett Development, the human settlement departments at national and provincial levels, and eThekwini municipality
  4. Dube Trade Port, the multi-modal facility at King Shaka International Airport

Cluster Initiatives
Durban has a very diverse economic landscape, within which there are some large-scale enterprises. Cooperation between the public and private sectors is formalised by the large number of cluster initiatives which  draw together experience and expertise from commerce and industry, labor organizations, government, and academia.

Under manufacturing, the following clusters or programs are active:

  1. KZN Clothing and Textile Cluster (KZN CTC)
  2. Durban Automotive Cluster (DAC)
  3. Durban Chemical Cluster (DCC)
  4. eThekwini Maritime Cluster (EMC)
  5. KZN Furniture Incubator
  6. Agro-processing development programs

Research aims to find out how best to grow particular economic sectors and in-depth discussions are held about how to develop and grow value chains. The wealth of KwaZulu-Natal is mostly consumed or exported in its raw state: Much more could be done to add value through processing.

The priority sectors are: 

  1. Automotive and allied industries
  2. Logistics and logistics management
  3. ICT and BPS (Information and Communications Technology, plus business process services)
  4. Agri-processing
  5. Life sciences, including pharmaceuticals, medical device manufacturing, plus health facilities
  6. Tourism asset development

Some of these initiatives play to the existing strengths of the regional economy while some seek to exploit newer avenues as in the emphasis on the environment and a growing interest in the oceans’ economy. A variety of projects link tourism, renewable energy generation, recycling, and job creation.

There are various other broader programs that have their own goals, but there will be positive spin-offs for the targeted sectors. These schemes include the drive to increase local content, boosting metal fabrication across sectors, the promotion of black industrialists, promoting exports, and the overarching eThekwini Industrial Development Policy Action Plan.

Companies operating in these key sectors are invited to contact Invest Durban and benefit from these initiatives!