By Bob Kernohan

Several million rands is to be spent boosting the Karoo as an international conference venue, starting with a world mohair summit which is forecast to attract up to 1000 delegates, 200 of them from overseas.

The plan was announced at Mohair SA‘s headquarters in Port Elizabeth at the weekend, with officials from various partner organisations spelling out the benefits of the event from November 5 to 9 next year, mainly in Graaff-Reinet and Jansenville but spreading more widely to other Karoo towns, Uitenhage and Port Elizabeth.

One of the main organisers will be Ikwezi municipality, which comprises a number of small towns, including Jansenville, Klipplaat and Waterford,

Its mayor, Sizwe Mngwevu, said at the announcement that the summit “will bring not only immediate cash inflows but also sustainable returns as it boosts a number of tourism initiatives, including a potential home-stay programme for guests”.

Municipal manager Thandekile Mnyimba said the municipality was also eager to raise the standard of living for impoverished Karoo communities.

“The Mohair Breeders‘ Association, Mohair Growers‘ Association and the mohair experimental farm are all based in Ikwezi. “However, our people, who produce this highly expensive material, are the poorest people in South Africa.

“They do not fully benefit from one of the two major industries in the area.

“The unemployment rate is 62% and most of the people live below the United Nations poverty line of $1 (R7,50) a day.

“Through the mohair summit, the municipality intends to invite international and domestic investors to come and form part of the solution.

“This exercise will create employment, stimulate the economy and ultimately improve the lives of our people” Mnyimba said.

The Eastern Cape is home to most of the 900 angora goat farmers who produce more than half of world production, as well as two of the world‘s major processing plants.

Event co-ordinator Andrew Binning said the summit would include a two-day conference, an exhibition and a networking programme, including site visits.

“It is rather unusual for relatively small towns to host an international trade show, but their proximity to Port Elizabeth airport and their offering to visitors with respect to the animals and attached processing operations make Graaff-Reinet and Jansenville the obvious location for this initiative.”

Binning said the cost of staging the event was still being finalised but it would be “several million rands”.

The venues would include a tented exhibition centre, like the one used last year for an automotive components trade show, while it was estimated that 1500 beds ranging from hotels to bed-and- breakfast establishment and “home-stay farms” were available within an hour‘s drive of the summit venues.

Among those providing funding will be several provincial and national government departments, including the agricultural departments, Mohair SA and the Development Bank of Southern Africa.

The Independent Development Corporation and Eastern Cape Development Corporation had also “shown interest”, Binning said.

Source: The Herald