Everything we do at the Western Cape Government aims to grow the province’s economy to create more jobs.
A key driver of growth is our efforts to make it as easy as possible for the private sector—businesses and companies—to operate in our province. Every economic sector, no matter how big or small, is critical to ensuring we jumpstart our economy and create as many jobs as we can. One such sector is the automotive industry.
The Western Cape’s automotive manufacturing sector employs approximately 2,500 people, representing 11% of the national automotive manufacturing sector and 5% of the total manufacturing employment in the Western Cape. While this is relatively small, compared with other provinces, we at the Western Cape Government believe every sector of our economy can contribute to us achieving our ultimate goal of building a resilient, inclusive, jobs-rich economy that is growing by between 4% and 6% a year by 2035. Our economic growth masterplan, the Growth For Jobs (G4J) strategy is our guide towards this shared prosperity that seeks to create an enabling ecosystem for businesses and companies to thrive in our region.
But our growth must also be rooted in responsibility. The Western Cape is feeling the wrath of climate change. In 2024 alone, so far, we have experienced 7 disasters, many of them natural disasters, a vivid and costly warning of the growing impact of climate change. Like other economic sectors, South Africa’s automotive manufacturing industry must work at striking a balance between the country’s desperate need for meaningful economic growth and the need to grow the automotive sector.
This involves capitalising on green, environmentally friendly innovation in the sector, including further developing the local electric vehicle (EV) market. In 2023, Cape Town played host to the Formula E World Championships, the perfect platform to demonstrate our embrace of this groundbreaking technology. If South Africa is to ramp up production of EVs. This is vital in boosting our growth prospects by harnessing the potential of the automotive sector – one of the country’s largest economic sectors, contributing nearly 5% to GDP.
Its potential is brought into sharper focus when considering the industry directly employs 110 000 people and indirectly supports nearly 460 000 jobs across the economy.
The Western Cape Government remains committed to positioning the province as an a leading automotive production hub.