"Owing to the South African investment climate, where local companies have more cash to spend, we have decided to include them in our national investment promotion," says CDC communications specialist and spokesperson Ongama Mtimka.

It is hoped that Coega will give the economically depressed Eastern Cape the boost it needs to become a "working province".

It is broadening the industrial/manufacturing base, establishing an export and transshipment hub service to the continent, creating jobs and entrepreneurship opportunities.

The port element of the project is to be operational from the third quarter of 2009.

Safmarine senior key account executive for South Africa-based accounts Alan Jones told Engineering News last month that the Ngqura deep-water port at the Coega industrial development zone has the potential to be the southern hemisphere shipping hub.

He said there was currently no shipping hub in the southern hemisphere, and that Ngqura was best suited to carry this title as it was equidistant between the US and Asia.

Jones said the Coega development was a "huge opportunity for us - but the focus should be more on the port and not the infrastructure around it".

He added that this should ensure that the Port of Ngqura becomes a "huge source of income".

Mtimka says that CDC the Rio Tinto Alcan aluminium smelter project has had to be rescheduled because of the current energy crisis and will be realigned with power utility Eskom's built programme.

"In the 2006/7 financial year, we signed nine investors and we had a target of ten. Four became operational last year. With the port opening next year, we are seeing a speedy process of investment promotion from our side, where the investors, particularly on the logistics side, are increasingly putting up their facilities. There is increasing interest in the port area."

CDC marketing and communications manager Senzeni Ndebele points out that, in spite of the energy crisis, the corporation is not stopping any projects.

"The Coega combined-cycle gas turbine is a power project that we are working on. If the project is successful and comes on line, we are looking at 3200 MW feeding into the national power grid. We are also working closely with government on a peaking power plant, which will alleviate the power crisis for Coega," says Ndebele.

She adds that until 2015, the corporation will be focusing on driving investment promotion. Hitherto it focused on infrastructure development in areas around the zone in to support the project.

"The focus is increasingly on investment promotion opportunities at Coega, as a preferred investment destination. There are six investors currently on site at Coega, and by the end of the year we are likely to announce about ten investments at Coega, as well as at the logistics park."

Despite some view in some quarters that Coega and its associated deep-water harbour Nggura have been an unmitigated failure, possessing all the hallmarks of a ‘white elephant' development, Ndebele argues that from 2005 to 2008, Coega signed about 16 investors.

"It is not a short-term process, but a long-term one. People need to understand the process from the time it takes to sign a contract to when a project becomes operational. Government invested R7-billion in Coega, but we were able to create investments in 24 months of about R30-billion.

"We had to create an infrastructure that has a positive impact on the people in the area and, to date, have created over 20 000 construction jobs and we were able to train over 5 000 people in line with the change of focus we announced last year, that we were building a massive skills development centre.