{"id":421,"date":"2012-03-25T16:03:11","date_gmt":"2012-03-25T16:03:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thebizsense.com\/za\/?p=421"},"modified":"2012-03-25T16:05:37","modified_gmt":"2012-03-25T16:05:37","slug":"south-africa-japan-busines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thebizsense.com\/za\/news\/south-africa-japan-busines","title":{"rendered":"South Africa woos Japanese business"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Toyota<\/a>

Toyota Kaw-Zulu Natal<\/p><\/div>\n

Pretoria – KwaZulu-Natal Premier Dr Zweli Mkhize has arrived in Osaka on an official visit aimed at getting companies in Japan to invest in the province of KwaZulu-Natal.<\/p>\n

Mkhize, who is accompanied by Economic Development and Tourism MEC Mike Mabuyakhulu, said meetings had been lined up with companies involved mainly in the automotive manufacturing sector.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are on a drive of attracting leading manufacturers from Japan because the manufacturing sector has served as a driving force for economic growth in Japan. The labour productivity growth in the sector has been far greater in all sectors since the 90s,\u201d said the premier.<\/p>\n

He announced recently that around R80 billion would be invested in the refurbishment of the provincial ports in the next seven years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Ports of Richards Bay and Durban are important contributors to international trade and a significant enabler for South Africa and the province\u2019s economic development. Some funds will be dedicated towards the implementation of the Durban Dug-Out Port. The Dug-Out Port will accommodate the increased capacity for automotive export market.\u201d<\/p>\n

The province was also planning an Automotive Supplier Park around the Dug-Out Port. Mkhize said this park would be a strategic site for the production of vehicle components and would improve production and competitiveness of the automotive industry.<\/p>\n

KwaZulu-Natal is the biggest manufacturing exporter, with the automotive sector playing a key role in the provincial economy.<\/p>\n

About 45.3% of all passenger vehicles and bakkies exported from South Africa came from KwaZulu-Natal in 2008.<\/p>\n

The province\u2019s trade index grew by 8.3% year-on-year, its strongest growth since last February. This was driven partly by the 25.3% increase in vehicle sales.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur main strategic goal is to ensure that the province\u2019s automotive industry doubles its size in the next decade and that we become a leading exporter of vehicles. Thousands of jobs will be created in the process,\u201d said Mkhize. – BuaNews<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pretoria – KwaZulu-Natal Premier Dr Zweli Mkhize has arrived in Osaka on an official visit aimed at getting companies in Japan to invest in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. Mkhize, who is accompanied by Economic Development and Tourism MEC Mike Mabuyakhulu, said meetings had been lined up with companies involved mainly in the automotive manufacturing sector.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":422,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[27,98,1,292],"tags":[207,727,333,725],"class_list":["post-421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-kzn","category-news","category-tourism","tag-business","tag-japan","tag-kwa-zulu-natal","tag-tourism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebizsense.com\/za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebizsense.com\/za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebizsense.com\/za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebizsense.com\/za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebizsense.com\/za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebizsense.com\/za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":426,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebizsense.com\/za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421\/revisions\/426"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebizsense.com\/za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebizsense.com\/za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebizsense.com\/za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebizsense.com\/za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}