Over the last decade, the Coega industrial development zone (IDZ) has brought in scheduled investments totalling nearly R30-billion.

Coega Development Corporation (CDC) marketing and communications manager Senzeni Ndebele said that many more companies are set to be operational in the IDZ in the next five years, with investors creating about 20000 jobs each year.

"This is an extremely significant number, considering the rate of unemployment in Nelson Mandela Bay and the Eastern Cape as a whole," said Ndebele.

The CDC, through its human capital solutions (HCS) component, itself hopes to have trained 50000 people from the surrounding community by 2013.

"They will then be entered into the CDC's database, from which investors can source the skills they require," said Ndebele.

Ndebele added that striving to be a preferred investment destination required hard work.

"One of our main focus areas at the moment is building facilities for six investors in the Nelson Mandela Bay Logistics Park (NMBLP) in Uitenhage. These companies are due to start operations from within the park between December this year and March next year," she added.

The CDC took over the task of further development and operation of the park from the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality (NMBM) in March.

The CDC recently concluded investment deals worth about R1.2-billion, with six vehicle component manufacturers in the park.

"When the CDC took over from the NMBM, there was lots of business looming," Ndebele explained.

"We've since been chasing projects in a bid to bring them to finality due to their tight time-frames. We had to adjust our business model and move with more haste in an attempt to put up these companies' enabling structures and infrastructure. But everything is running on schedule. We don't anticipate any hiccups."

She added that by March next year, the CDC hoped that it would have trained enough people with the relevant skills for the companies that need them.

She reported that the CDC had created more than 25000 jobs to date. There were about 2000 people on site at any given time, working on the port of Ngqura and within the IDZ itself.

Some 400 SMMEs have benefited from the Coega project to date.

Empowerment of women is one of the corporation's constant objectives.