Durban International Airport Relocation 'to Create 100,000 Jobs'

Airport Relocation 'to Create 100,000 Jobs' 
The Mercury, South Africa

March 3, 2004


More than 100 000 permanent jobs would be created by
the relocation of Durban International Airport to the
proposed Dube Trade Port/King Shaka Inter-national
Airport at La Mercy, on the North Coast, said
provincial Economic Affairs and Tourism Minister Roger
Burrows.

Public gains of R1 billion would accrue in new rates
and taxes arising out of the construction.

Burrows was quoting a report commissioned by the
government that covers feasibility studies by
international and local consultants on La Mercy.

Local economist and academic, Jeff McCarthy, dused
these studies to draw up a report which contains the
projections.

Burrows described the report as the most compelling
evidence yet of the viability of the Dube Trade
Port/King Shaka International Airport project and
pledged to do all he could to have it implemented.

Last week the provincial government gazetted the
expropriation of the 2 000ha La Mercy site, which is
presently owned by the Airports Company of South
Africa.

The government believes that at least 22 000 jobs will
be created in the construction of the airport.

The Construction of a manufacturing plant on the
present Durban International Airport site would create
100 000 direct and indirect operating jobs, according
to the McCarthy report.

The report says Durban International Airport is at the
centre of Durban's southern 
industrial basin.

"Flat land such as this, with most services
effectively in place, make it rare indeed and a plum
location for industrial sub-sectors which are somewhat
port-dependent, and in which there are national
competitive advantages, such as motor car
manufacturing and also motor components.

"According to the Steers Davies and Gleave
(international consultants) cost benefit analysis, the
jobs that could be created through construction of
manufacturing plant on the Durban International
Airport site amount to some 170 000 - a huge
contribution by any standard.

Opportunities

"Moreover, direct and indirect operating jobs on the
Durban International Airport site are likely to be of
the order of 100 000 - once again, far ahead of any
other plausible opportunities in the region," the
report says.  


The present value of increased tax revenues derived
from Dube Trade Port would exceed government subsidy
costs in airport development, according to the cost
benefit analysis, by a margin that would be considered
an acceptable return on investment by the private
sector.

Enhanced rates income on the land would alone amount
to some R130 million a year, almost one tenth of the
Metro's current rates income.

"Such possibilities for local public finances
enhancement are rare indeed and probably they are
unrepeatable," says the report.

The McCarthy report says the research provides strong
evidence of a demand for an air cargo-based airport at
La Mercy, focused on perishable exports as well as
electrical goods, clothing and textiles and vehicle
parts.

It is vital to the province's struggling tourism
industry and would also connect KwaZulu-Natal with
world markets that are bigger and growing at more than
three times the rate of the South African 
economy.

"King Shaka International Airport and Dube Trade Port
plans are consistent with global best practice in
enhancing logistics and connectivity in the rapidly
integrating world economy and are thus a most likely
candidate to keep the province ahead or near the
cutting edge in the global economic race and to resist
the province's otherwise increasing marginalisation in
the national context," the report adds.

Said Burrows: "This confirms what we have always
believed. Dube Trade Port and King Shaka International
are viable in themselves and absolutely vital to the
economic progress of KwaZulu-Natal, in agriculture, in
tourism and in manufacturing.

"National government supports the project and so does
provincial government. The priority now is to position
ourselves in readiness for the Public/private
partnership we have in mind, drawing on overseas
capital and expertise."
 

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