Minister Winde Welcomes Mining Indaba Delegates

Statement by Western Cape Minister of Finance, Economic Development & Finance Alan Winde.

The Western Cape Government welcomes Mining Indaba, the world’s largest mining investment conference to the Western Cape.

Mining Indaba is an annual gathering of the most influential stakeholders – financiers, investors, mining professionals, government officials, bankers, fund managers, analysts, executives and board members - from large mining companies and mining service companies in Africa.

The conference will take place at the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC) from 4 to 7 February 2013 where it was first hosted in 2004 and started with just 1900 delegates.

According to the Indaba’s organisers, Mining Indaba LLC, this year’s conference is set to be the largest yet, with 7 500 delegates expected to attend.

Western Cape Minister of Finance, Economic Development and Tourism, Alan Winde said: “A warm welcome to all of the Indaba’s delegates. We trust that discussions will be fruitful and aim to stabilise, in particular, the uncertainty that has marked South Africa’s mining sector in the last number of years.”

“Once the CTICC’s expansion project is complete, we look forward to hosting an even larger Mining Indaba and other conferences such as the Tourism Indaba, the Conference of the Parties (COP) and other large international conferences. The expansion will position the CTICC as Africa’s best conference facility.” Minister Winde added.

“Last year we announced that the CTICC’s expansion project would double the CTICC’s meetings and exhibition capacity. In addition to the award-winning architectural design team, comprised of a consortium of architects from Stauch Vorster Architects, Van der Merwe Miszewski Architects, and Makeka Design Lab, the full professional team has now been appointed.” Rashid Toefy, the CEO of the CTICC added.

Over the past nine years of its existence, the CTICC has contributed nearly R20 billion to the South Africa’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). As a result of the centre’s activities in the 2011/2012 financial year, more than 7 000 direct and indirect employment opportunities were created in the Western Cape and across South Africa.

The macro-economic benefits of the CTICC’s expansion have been calculated as follows:

• Contribution to the national GDP of R705 million in 2016, increasing to R1.98 billion by 2018. The cumulative contribution to GDP is expected to exceed R7.7 billion by 2020.

• Contribution to Western Cape GGP of R214 million in 2016 increasing to R531 million by 2020. The cumulative contribution to GGP to total R2.2 billion by 2020.

• The creation of 539 sustainable direct jobs in 2016, increasing to 1 082 direct jobs in the Western Cape by 2020.

• The creation of 888 indirect jobs throughout South Africa in 2016, increasing to 1 973 indirect jobs by 2020.

• Cumulative contributions to taxes of over R736 million, indirect household income of R4.0 billion and the generation of net foreign exchange of R181 million by 2020.