‘Development still needed at Seshego industrial park’
The Limpopo Economic Development Agency head of land and properties, Moris Molepo, said more development and revamping of the Seshego Industrial Park is needed to attract foreign direct investment and other businesses within the vicinity.
POLOKWANE -Molepo made this statement during a media site visit aimed at showcasing Limpopo’s competitiveness in Seshego recently. The visit was organised by Brand South Africa, in partnership with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), that has already spent more than R21 million on its first phase of the revitalisation of the park.
According to Molepo, most of the infrastructure around the park is almost two decades old and therefore is in need of revamping, particularly most of the top structures of the 63 factories based in the park.
“We have developed 54 ha of the site with one 100 ha of the land not yet developed. We want to be in a position to market the park properly once the revamping has been done in a few years in order to house more manufacturing tenants who will be able to create labour intensive jobs,” said Molepo.
He added that the vision for the park was to achieve an annual turnover of R200 million in years to come. He said this can only happen once the development has been completed.
The Chief Director for Regional Industrial Development at DTI, Stieneke Samuel, said it was important to continuously create awareness around the industrial park in order to improve industrialisation in Limpopo.
“The park offers the opportunity to attract investment and increase the provinces’ participation in value-addition, thus exporting processed goods instead of raw produce. We would like to see the park operating as a state-of-the-art industrial park promoting innovation and operating with high levels of technology. The park must house competitive firms in the manufacturing space,” she said.
Samuel added that Limpopo has the potential to strengthen and establish clusters and value chains around their natural resources. She said this will have a direct impact on job creation, not only for Polokwane but Limpopo as a whole.
Limaqua Beverages Business Development Manager, Peter Malebane, said since they relocated to the Seshego Industrial Park two years ago, a lot has been achieved in a short period of time.
Malebane said they have seen an increase in the production line, employed more people from Seshego and that the business has been growing annually at a steady rate.
