ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I must firstly apologise for Executive Mayor Zintle Peter who is on her way from Cape Town where she had to meet with the Minister of Local and Provincial Government and attend to other matters concerning the City.

On behalf of the Executive Mayor, I wish to welcome this important delegation to an area that has high on its development agenda the ambition to make the City an investment destination choice.

We are grateful to be able to welcome an Indonesian delegation because there are historical areas of similarity that we share in terms of our colonial experience and we are now emerging democracies equally subjected to the vagaries of the international financial system.

We have learnt from your country’s experiences and watch jealously your current growth rate of 5,2% while we ourselves are making every endeavour to reach 6%. We acknowledge of course that your population is five times ours.

Honoured guests, mine is a simple task just to welcome you to one of the most important development nodes in the Eastern Cape and ask you to note the fact that together with our sister City, Nelson Mandela Bay, we account for nearly 80% of the Gross Geographical Product of the Eastern Cape.

You will be taken through with a presentation by the Buffalo City Development Agency which will tell you most you need to know about our City so there is not much more for me to say but to give you our firm commitment at a political level that we will leave no stone unturned to promote investment in our City.

Ours is a City of contrasts which I am sure you are not unfamiliar with from your experiences in your part of the world.

We have sophisticated developed areas with all the infrastructure of a modern economy living side by side alongside high under developed areas where our poor and formerly marginalized live and the main concern is food security.

Our main task as a City in terms of our strategies is to create jobs and alleviate poverty and to do that we have to have productive investment in our economy which is not creating the desired number of jobs.

So we have a good trainable labour force available, enough land, water, and electricity for input into production and we bend over backwards to accommodate investors’ requests. We believe we are up to the task of accommodating you.

Others will tell you more about the investment opportunities in the region but mine is merely to welcome you here and to tell you that on behalf of the municipal council, we are here to assist you and to open doors for you if they are closed.

Our role is to mould an environment that is conducive for investment and a climate where business can thrive in an investment-friendly atmosphere. We pledge to do this.

ENDS.

Welcome and thank you.

Sizwe Dikimolo
Acting Executive Mayor
27^th May 2006.