Pretoria – Rural Development and Land Reform Minister Gugile Nkwinti envisages that the Ocean Economy and Infrastructure will potentially boost South Africa’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) starting from 2019 to 2030.
He envisaged that the South African Ocean Economy will boost the country’s GDP by R26 billion, to create 65 000 jobs.
The Minister said this on Thursday when he participated in a debate on the country’s economy under the theme “Building collective action for inclusive growth”.
He said this will be achieved through the three main sectors, which include marine transport and manufacturing, off-shore oil and gas exploration and aqua culture.
He envisaged that, through marine transport and manufacturing, the contribution to GDP will increase from R7 billion to between R14 billion and R23 billion by 2019, creating between 40 000 and 50 000 jobs, jumping off 6 000 jobs at present with the 30% market share contribution to South African companies.
“With regard to off-shore oil and gas exploration, we will promote exploration in order to drill 30 exploration worlds in the next two years.
“With regard to aqua culture, we envisage that the GDP contribution will jump from R0.7 billion to R3 billion and jobs created will increase from 2 227 to 15 000,” he said.
He said the country’s potential in terms of ocean economy ranges between R129 and R127 billion with between 800 000 and one million jobs potential by 2030, as compared to the current R54 billion and 316 000 jobs.
Infrastructure
He said currently, the Presidential Infrastructure Coordinating Commission and National Treasury are developing a mechanism to boost the implementation capacity of the state and are designing a public private funding model.
“These processes should be concluded within the next Cabinet Cycle,” he said.
The Minister called on opposition parties to come up with alternative economic growth policies.
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