Peter Dickson
With most of the land still in private hands and R40-million spent on the development model for the Coega industrial development zone, Portnet and the Coega Development Corporation (CDC) are using a worldwide study tour for a costly, last- minute rethink on the Eastern Cape’s “economic miracle”.
Meanwhile, back home, South Africa’s leading stainless steel manu-facturer is already moving to protect local interests. Two senior Portnet managers and four from the CDC (the Port Elizabeth-based government agency driving the ambitious plans for a R1,5-billion deep-water container port and three steel mills at Coega outside the city), are on an 18-day visit to Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai’s Jebel Ali Free Zone, Los Angeles, Portland and Rotterdam that could dramatically alter the current development model.
“Although the model being followed for the development of Coega is good,” says CDC communications manager Raymond Hartle, “other models offer different opportunities and we are investigating them at present and weighing up the route we’re following against these models.”
The team, led by CDC technical and planning manager Eugene Heeger, will be observing maritime operations, back-of- port facilities and the practices and success factors setting them apart as port and investment destinations.
Hartle says good progress has been made with pitches to foreign investors, while technical and planning aspects are on stream as November’s construction deadline nears.
“We’re moving into a new phase where we are focusing more on marketing and looking to attract direct foreign investment,” Hartle said.
Already, foreign multinationals Ferrostaal, Danielli and Thyssen have indicated they will be undertaking feasibility studies in the Coega zone, while Anglo-Dutch consortium P&O Nedlloyd/TCI is Portnet’s “preferred private partner” for building the port.
But the stainless steel wars have already begun. Columbus Stainless, South Africa’s leading manufacturer, was reported last week as trying to discourage Germany’s Ferrostaal from building a primary manufacturing mill at Coega.
Columbus acting chief executive Tony Bagnall said in a news release last Tuesday: “While we would not support an additional primary manu-facturing facility, any project involving downstream beneficiation of Columbus’s stainless steel in South Africa would interest us.”
Ferrostaal Southern Africa managing director Andreas Jahnel, who last year accused Columbus of not fully co-operating with the German company, declined to comment and said Ferrostaal was at a critical planning phase. The companies have held talks, described by Bagnall as “still very much at an exploratory stage”, over several months.