South African boatbuilding industry contributes R1.5 billion to national economy
By IBI Magazine
The South African boatbuilding industry contributed about R1.5 billion to the country's economy last year, according to officials with the Cape Town Boatbuilding Initiative (CTBi). Veda Raubenheimer, the managing director of the trade group, told the Cape Town Business Report that South African boat manufacturing facilities were capitalising on the slightly weaker Rand to make them more competitive, particularly when it came to exports. Raubenheimer told the paper that boatbuilding was booming in the Western Cape, where about 3,500 people were employed in the industry. After France, said Raubenheimer, South Africa was the second-largest producer of catamarans in the world. CTBi was established in 2004 to raise standards in the industry to international best practices in order to facilitate growth of exports, skills development and marketing of the boating industry. The organisation had full support from the department of trade and industry, which assisted in obtaining export opportunities for local boatbuilders. The government and trade association had jointly organised exhibitions to showcase new boats from Cape Town. Nils Flaaten, the acting chief executive of Wesgro, the trade and investment promotion agency responsible for attracting investment in the Western Cape, said Cape Town produced up to 87 per cent of the country's boatbuilding output.
(4 December 2006)
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