During the City of Cape Town’s latest Mayoral Committee meeting, we received encouraging feedback on the success of the City’s Atlantis incentive scheme.

Now in its third year of implementation, the total uptake of non-financial incentives reached 530 and the financial incentives uptake was worth R15 million. This brings the total uptake of non-financial incentives to 1 039 and over R40 million worth of financial incentives since 2013.

The Atlantis Investment Incentive Scheme was created in recognition of the social and economic challenges in Atlantis. We saw the potential of Atlantis in terms of having a large labour pool with great land values, strategically located on transport networks.

We believe that cities are important drivers of economic growth and that Cape Town has all the requirements of a great location to invest: high levels of talent, constantly improving connectivity with other parts of the world, and a high quality of services.

Our incentive scheme includes non-financial incentives such as fast-tracking land use and building plan applications. It includes providing biodiversity offsets to ensure that we remain focused on taking care of the natural environment and managing natural resources more efficiently, together with businesses.

The hard financial incentives that we make available include the exemption of application fees for land and building plans and waiving development facilitation fees. We also write off service debt when businesses meet employment targets, enabling job creation through direct investments.

The uptake of the electricity tariff subsidy in Atlantis remains the most significant incentive, supporting business retention with 1 450 job opportunities retained because of this particular incentive.

The establishment of the Atlantis investment facilitation office is another dedicated resource at the service of prospective and current investors. This office has increased awareness about all the incentives and assistance that the City can provide in the targeted area.

The incentives have contributed to an increased interest in Atlantis as a potential investment destination. Companies that have established operations in Atlantis during this year include a wind turbine components supplier, a shutter manufacturing plant, two transport companies, an aluminium casting factory, a hotel furniture manufacturing factory, and a PVC and door manufacturing plant.

We are patiently waiting for the long-awaited approval from the Department of Trade and Investment for Atlantis to be granted the status of a Special Economic Zone, which will allow for the supplementation of the local incentives on offer with a range of national incentives and thus bring in even more investment.