Decisive political leadership is required from the metro to make a success of property investment attraction efforts in the Mandela Bay Development Agency's mandate area.
This was the view expressed on Friday by agency chairman Sipho Pityana.
He was speaking at the property investors' conference held at the Summerstrand Inn, which was hosted by the MBDA and aimed to highlight the city's potential to investors.
The event was attended by more than 200 delegates, of whom more than a third were from outside of the city.
"The requirements for success of this project, in my view, are that there must be decisive political leadership on the part of the metro," said Pityana in his address.
"There must be commitment to this as an infrastructure-driven project. If that commitment lacks, I am afraid the cost for the metro will be greater because we have invested a huge amount of resources already.
"The Strategic Spatial Infrastructure Framework has created clarity, certainty and direction to the extent that it is endorsed by the metro.
"We must be focused on that and ensure that there is clear commitment from the political leadership at the highest level," he said. Pityana said the agency was clear in its objectives and aggressive in achieving success, which it saw happening in conjunction with the right private sector partners.
"Unlike the processes around the department of public enterprises, we recognise there is urgency and we will go to whoever has the biggest chequebook to come and play in this space," he said, referring to the pending decision on the timing of the relocation of the ore dumps and tank farms to the Port of Ngqura.
"We don't have time for sentimental notions about: 'I come from PE, but I don't have money, but I think I should have this thing.
"But we think there will be opportunities for partnership. We will be driven by the sense of urgency."
Other speakers on the programme focused on the local property environment in relation to the rest of the country, with it being made clear that huge opportunities existed for growth and investment returns.
Property expert Erwin Rode pointed out that growth across all property classes lagged other major centres.
He saw great potential in office and industrial space development as these were coming off low bases and looked "promising".
Rode said the one class that had traditionally realised the best returns was the retail sector, which had shown an average of 10% annual rental growth over the past 40 years.
The view on retail space was echoed by Grant Thornton's Gillian Saunders, who said that shopping was always a major attraction and feature of tourist activity.
Her presentation highlighted tourism figures and trends.
She said domestic tourists to Mandela Bay were expected to grow to 4,4 million by 2015 from just short of 2 million last year. The growth in foreign tourists was expected to grow from 428,000 last year to 750,000 by 2015.
Eastern Province Herald
Publisher: I-Net Bridge
Source: I-Net Bridge
