The Coega Special Economic Zone (SEZ), established in 1999 and 11,500 ha in extent, is situated near

Gqeberha Gqeberha (), formerly Port Elizabeth and colloquially often referred to as P.E., is a major seaport and the most populous city in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It is the seat of the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality, So ...

(Port Elizabeth) in the

Eastern Cape The Eastern Cape is one of the provinces of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho, but its two largest cities are East London and Gqeberha. The second largest province in the country (at 168,966 km2) after Northern Cape, it was formed in ...

province of

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

. The initiative is a multibillion-dollar industrial development complex customised for heavy, medium and light industries, and adjacent to a deep-water port, the

Port of Ngqura The Port of Ngqura is a deepwater port on the east coast (Indian Ocean) of South Africa, 20 km northeast of Gqeberha. It was authorised by an act of parliament in 2002, construction started in September 2002 and the port became operational in ...

. Th
Coega Development Corporation (CDC)
is the developer and operator of the Coega SEZ and is responsible for the land side infrastructure, while the

Transnet National Ports Authority Transnet National Ports Authority (TNPA) is a government corporation of South Africa and a subsidiary of Transnet, responsible for managing and governing eight of South Africa's major seaports. TNPA is a landlord authority responsible for the ...

(TNPA) develops the deep-water port facility, the Port of Ngqura.

Structure

The Coega SEZ is a phased development around industry clusters with Custom Control Areas dedicated for export-oriented manufacturing for companies located in the zone. Coega offers a platform for global exports by attracting foreign and local investment in manufacturing industries. A strategic development framework plan for the Coega SEZ has been developed, focusing on infrastructure development and facilities for the core development area, which comprises 65 km². The Coega SEZ is demarcated into 14 zones and is specifically designed along the cluster model linking related industries from the commercial cluster, logistics cluster to automotive cluster, and energy cluster. The Coega SEZ was developed to attract investment from the automotive, agro-processing, chemicals, energy, general manufacturing, metals, and business process outsourcing.

Port of Ngqura

The

is a deep-water port adjacent to Coega SEZ, 20 km northeast of Port Elizabeth on the east coast (Indian Ocean) of South Africa. The deep-water port, with a depth of between 16m and 18m, cost R10 billion and became operational in 2009. The Port assists the Coega SEZ as a means of transporting equipment and manufactured products in and out of the country.

Laydown area

Between Coega SEZ and Ngqura Port is a 12-hectare laydown area designed to be a temporary storage site for abnormal cargo. The project which cost R9 million, was started in 2014 and started operating in April 2015.

Economic impact

At the beginning of 2017, Coega had attracted 54 new investors with over R30 billion investment since it was established in 1999. During the 2015/2016 financial year, the SEZ made R12 billion through investments. In January 2017, the SEZ reported that there were 36 operational investors with a combined investment value of R6.6 billion. In January 2017, in its June 2016/2017, Coega announced that it had signed 16 new investors valued at R11.69 billion and created 16500 jobs. The Coega SEZ reached 7 170 Operational jobs and 9 330 new construction jobs both in the SEZ and new infrastructure projects were created in 2016/2017. 5 886 people were trained and the SMME spend reached 36% during the financial year of 2016/2017. 555 people are currently contracted on the projects in the SEZ, and 70% of them are

Nelson Mandela Bay Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality ( af, Nelson Mandelabaai Metropolitaanse Munisipaliteit; xh, uMasipala wase Nelson Mandela Bay or ''uMasipala waseBhayi'') is one of eight metropolitan municipalities (also called Category A municipalities) in So ...

-based residents. SEZ investment projects and infrastructure development programmes created more than 83 405 jobs in the past eight years.

Awards

* Infrastructure Development category winner at the Vision 2030 Awards * Top Performing Public Service Award in South Africa at the 14th Annual Business Awards * Three 14th Annual Oliver Empowerment Awards -Legends of Empowerment & Transformation, Job Creation Award and Top Empowered Vision 2030 Award

References

External links

*
RailwaysAfrica: Transnet on the Ports
Geography of the Eastern Cape Economy of the Eastern Cape Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality {{Water-transport-stub