Durban’s Business Profile

Durban’s Super 7 are the seven key reasons Durban is attractive to Business  and Leisure visitors. The acronym, ‘ALL HITS’ has been coined for easy recall.  

1.  Award winning Municipality.  We have the best run and financially strongest local government on the continent. Awards are bestowed through the likes of the Vuna awards – recognising Durban as being the best-run city in South Africa, with 18 500 employees. International credit rating agencies have given us investment grade credit ratings of AA+ off a budget of over R17Bn ($2,5Bn) p.a..  We have a huge, expanding fibre optic system to really make Durban THE Smart City, etc. We also have the lowest cost basket of rates and services levies across any of the major centres in South Africa.

2.  Lifestyle of business and pleasure together. This is a place to live, work and play. You might have other centres that are dominated by the business side, but perhaps not as blessed as we are with the sustainable lifestyle and sense of pleasure. You might have other places that dominate on lifestyle and pleasure, but don’t have a huge business side to them, in terms of manufacturing or infrastructure profile. The emphasis for us is on the word ‘together’, it’s the two complementary halves, the business or career half and the social and lifestyle-family side.

3.  Large Human Resources base.  At the heart of the most populace Province of Kwa Zulu-Natal, we have large pools of skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled labour, plus some of the best and fastest Skills Development taking place amongst our 3,2M cosmopolitan population.  E.G., we have Africa’s largest direct contact University based in Durban, the University of KwaZulu-Natal, with over 45,000 direct contact tertiary students of Black African, Asian and European decent.

4.  Highest growth rates.  Our economic growth rates are higher than the country’s average, and that of the other major centres, in the region of 6%-6.5 %. We’re targeting in the range of 7.5%-9%. This impacts positively on Business Confidence Levels, fixed capital formation, etc. “The trend is our friend”

5.  Infrastructure Leader.  We have the continent’s leading infrastructure base.  This includes virtual infrastructure like globalised financial services, plus the physical infrastructure base.  We have the best electricity distribution on the continent, a vast roads network, best & biggest water treatment & supply base, telecommunications via expanding fibre optics, and land. We have reasonable amounts of available vacant land at realistic prices across our 2 300 km2 City. At our heart specifically, Durban leads the continent in terms of port infrastructure, with Africa’s busiest harbour.

6.  Tourism Crown.  We are the largest domestic tourism destination in South Africa by a healthy margin, plus concrete projects in place to become one of the largest international tourism destinations.  This is done through an ‘event-led’ tourism drive across both business and pleasure tourism.  Our International Convention Centre is rated by the global trade as Africa’s best convention centre for the last 6 years running.  We have just spent nearly half a Billion Rand in terms of further expanding it’s footprint.  On the leisure front, we have recently hosted high profile events such as the A1 Grand Prix where the global organisers & competitors rated Durban as the best host City.  This event-led tourism build up is clearly focusing on our 2010 Soccer World Cup event, with the associated infrastructure upgrades (R6Bn+.), the build-up events such as FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup, and the life after 2010 with our eyes on the Commonwealth Games and also the Olympics.

7. Substantial, successful, growing business base already in place across the primary, secondary and tertiary sectors. It’s a case of functional magnetism – companies like to be located synergistically, with over 60% of the Provinces GGP produced in Durban.  Business is clustered around the manufacturing, tourism, services, maritime and logistics industries. Having the second largest business & industrial base in SA provides many options for suppliers, support services, customers, and employees which are all important elements of production.

These are the ALL HITS Super 7 that make Durban attractive to business & leisure residents and visitors.