Sprawled on a 3000 hectares the Dube port is one of the biggest infrastructure development in South Africa and Africa in general, linking a state of the art King Shaka international airport in Durban to one of Africa’s busiest ports, Durban Harbor and Richards Bay Harbour.
It is Africa’s first purpose built aerotropolis in the coastal province of South Africa, KwaZulu Natal. A contributing factor to the province’s contribution to the county’s GDP of 16.5 per cent.
Dube port, worth over 150 billion rands (11,244,223,500USD) has created employment to over 2,200 people so far and created 50,000 indirect employment.
The port was developed to stimulate economic growth, create employment and diversify exports. It was launched in 2014 with the phase now complete.
The completed section has a cargo facility built to be the most secure in Africa, a trade zone with a fully serviced industrial estate, a city which has premium office space and hospitality space, an agriculture sector for providing support for propagating, growing, packing and distributing high valuable perishable horticultural products. It also has an area dedicated to IT and telecommunications.
The second phase, Trade Zone 2, has been launched which will hold a logistics centre, manufacturing firms, an automotive park and electronic firm. It is expected to be completed by 2030.
Being a special economic zone the companies operating in the area are given incentives such as reduced tax at 15 percent instead of 28 percent.
One of the companies based there is a Chinese company, Yongtze Optics Africa Property limited that is producing fibre optics. After an initial investment of 150 million rands in 2016, which set up the company in nine months, the company has already made 9 million rands in its first quarter and has employed over 50 local staff according to Peng Guo Tai, the Chief Financial Officer.
Yongtze management settled there since the company produces for exportation thus the port and airport is very attractive and the proximity of Durban city to Johannesburg which is their biggest market in the country made the location ideal.
