My Regional Economy: The Global Stage or the Sidelines? The Battle for Western Cape Infrastructure

Export growth in the Western Cape is outstripping Government’s ability to support it with enabling infrastructure, according to a key Western Cape official who addressed the Cape Chamber’s Winelands Chapter on February 13.

This ‘infrastructure gap’ is a source of frustration for potential investors eager to cash in on market opportunities, says Ilse van Schalkwyk, WCape Acting Director-General: Economic Sector Support, Department of Economic Development and Tourism. Government needs to ensure it facilitates private sector market growth, rather than undermine it.  

Van Schalkwyk was a keynote speaker at the Winelands Chapter event held at the Nederberg Wine Estate outside Paarl. She cited various examples of business frustrations, such as difficulties in exporting table grapes through Cape Town Port, as well as poor road transport affecting a local diary business.

She also delivered an insightful overview of efforts to support investment and value chains where possible across the Province, in multiple sectors. The efforts include providing an ‘Investment Readiness’ scoresheet for all municipalities, aimed at identifying areas requiring attention and intervention. “Our exports are growing faster than what our infrastructure can deal with,”  Van Schalkwyk said. 

As a result, many private sector firms were ‘hanging onto their equity, and hedging their bets,”  she said, adding that a holistic value chain approach is required to unlock this potential. “In this country, with the unemployment figures we have, we cannot lose one investor. We need to ensure we are doing everything we can.”

In this regard, the Province’s Growth for Jobs (G4J) Programme was bearing fruit, with progress in the R400-billion investment pipeline identified last year. “Already started are six new investments to the value of R3,1-billion, now at the point of financial close, across different sectors,”  Van Schalkwyk said.  

The ‘Deal Book’ was a central feature of the inaugural Western Cape Investment Summit (WCIS 2025), held in November at the CTICC. It is tied to the province’s G4J strategy, which aims to grow the Western Cape into an inclusive R1 trillion economy by 2035.

Van Schalkwyk also stressed the need for local businesses to aim big in the context of increasingly competitive global trade: “It’s no longer good enough to ask: ‘Am I competitive with Gauteng or the Eastern Cape; now you must ask: ‘Can my business stand on the global stage?’”

The Province was addressing infrastructure concerns in its detailed infrastructure plan for the next 50 years, to be pegged around numerous anchor investors such as a new freight village to help alleviate port congestion.  

Van Schalkwyk flagged service delivery as one of the most frequent concerns raised by economic stakeholders: “For me, one of our biggest challenges is municipal service delivery.”  She said although Western Cape municipalities generally fared better in this regard compared with other provinces, there was still room for significant improvement.