The Coega Industrial Development Zone (IDZ) has started its new financial year
with the announcement of three new investments collectively valued at over R1- billion. The imminent roll-out of a manufacturing cement grinding plant, a readymix concrete plant and a gas cylinder plant follows a bumper 2015-16 financial year for the IDZ which saw nearly R12-billion of investments into the zone.
Coega Development Corporation (CDC) spokesman Dr Ayanda Vilakazi said the latest developments were specified as a R650-million manufacturing cement grinding plant, a R71-million readymix plant and a R350-million gas cylinder plant, with the companies named yesterday as MM Engineering, Kenako Concrete and Osho Cement.
“This announcement follows the unaudited results of another successful financial year for the organisation, in which the CDC secured a total of 16 investors with a combined investment value of R11.7-billion,” Vilakazi said.
He said MM Engineering’s investment comprised a joint venture between a Turkish and a South African company.The Kenako Concrete entry involved a local JV which included a black entrepreneur, while Osho Cement’s entry represented a JV between an Austrian and a South African company.
He said MM Engineering’s IDZ facility would serve the domestic market, countries within the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and international markets.Kenako Concrete would serve markets in South Africa from its new facility, while products from Osho Cement would be made available in the domestic and SADC markets.
Vilakazi said 401 direct jobs and 2,472 construction jobs would result.CDC has, through its IDZ investment projects and infrastructure development programmes, created more than 83,405 jobs in the past eight years.
It is projected that the organisation will for the first time in 16 years, since inception, exceed 100,000 jobs by the end of the 2016-17 financial year.
