Top 4 Best Locations To Buy A Business In South Africa

The cities of South Africa are no exception to the increasing cut-throat competition in the global economy as well as the South-African economy. Various cities like Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, Pretoria and Port Elizabeth are some of the most celebrated to start, expand or simply buying a running business.

These locations have been discussed in detail below so as to give you an insight into these cities and help you out for choosing the one that is best suited for you:

Cape Town

This is one of the most beautiful cities and more often known as the jewel of South Africa. This mountain is home to the Parliament and the very famous long street. This is the city that is home to hundreds of thousands entrepreneurs. In fact, it is the entrepreneurial capital of the country.

Highest rate of entrepreneurs:

According to a survey conducted by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, the rate of people living in this city who would pursue business opportunities was higher to the extent of 65% than the national average. It is also important to note that this percentage is highest here than in any other city in this country. On the other hand, Johannesburg, that is also known as the country’s economic hub was merely 24% higher than the national average that is much lower than Cape Town.

A hub for small business:

Most of these entrepreneurs explore the business opportunities in the small scale enterprises. An estimate of 75% of the total number of enterprises in Cape Town are small businesses.

The cost of Business:

The business cost, according to this real estate advisory company CBRichard Ellis in 2006 stood at €145 per square meter per year, while the cost in Paris and Frankfurt were as high as €639 and €402 respectively.

Innovation has been coped up with too:

Even more recently Cape Town has been investing in its innovation very well. In the emerging citied list of Innovation cities index, it has been ranked fourth. So that will give a boost to your business.

World Design Capital:

In the Designing Showground too, this city had been called the World Design Capital. If you are looking to start a website that you require to be internationally competitive and that should cater to a diverse audience, this is the place to go: that’s exactly what the EIU study has to say too. According to this study, this city is ahead of Beirut (Lebanon) and Porto Alegre (Brazil) as well.

Johannesburg

This city houses both soft and hard infrastructure. A large number of companies come flooding in into this city because of the huge number of opportunities that it has to offer.

Infrastructure:

Apart from the basic soft and hard infrastructure, the city’s newest project is underway. This project is called ‘the Corridors of Freedom’ and will make transportation easier. Architect Gerald Garner while speaking to the Johannesburg Development Agency was of the view that in the past seven years, infrastructure has greatly improved that has successfully drawn more than 100000 people to the inner city.

Growth:

He also added that the city more generates many more opportunities and the growth rate of the economy too is running a horse race.

Tourism:

Moreover, this is the African city that people tourist at the most. As many as 2.4 million tourists flow in into the city every year.

Nelson Mandela bay

This bay is the town of Port Elizabeth, Uitenhage and Despatch. It is a major seaport that offers a huge number of opportunities for the business. Further, the automotive manufacturing centre is also conveniently located in the south-eastern coast of South Africa.

Industries:

It will be a relief for the businesses looking to prosper in this region that according to the Metro’s 2009 integrated development plan report, the city’s industry alone sums up to 33% of the local economy.

Last but not the least, the Coega Industrial Development Zone (IDZ) in this region is the largest IDZ in the whole of the southern hemisphere. Businesses ranging from steel smelters to dairy products have been flourishing here in this city. Right next to this is the Port of Ngqura’s harbour that was developed by the National Ports Authority of South Africa. This harbour was constructed as a multi-user deep water harbour.

The logistics parastatal, Transnet made an announcement in the previous year. They were of the view that up to 2.3 billion would be required to upgrade the existing rail lines from the port to Hotazel, which is a manganese mining town in the Northern Cape, hence, enabling people here to explore more opportunities.

EThekwini

This is the also the metropolitan area in the country of South Africa that is developing at a very fast rate. This area includes Durban that is the main hub here, along with the other towns of Pinetown, Tongaat, Umhlanga and 90 other districts.

Port of Durban:

This is the largest city in the country and has the largest port i.e. the Port of Durban in the southern hemisphere. This port apart from being the largest in the country is also ranked in the top 50 busiest ports of the world. The survey of the American Association of Port Authorities World Port Rankings of 2009, this port has previously managed about 2.5 million twenty feet equivalent units.

A lot of focus is also being put on the manufacturing department in the city. Specifically, in the metro, there is Huletts sugar in Tongaat, Toyota's factory in Prospecton and many more other companies and industrial units here in this country.

The growth

As a business aspirant for this city, you will be delighted to know that this city of Durban alone contributes to the about 55% of the total GDP of the entire region. That’s not all, if we take into consideration the entire country’s statistics; about 15% of the GDP of the country also comes from this region.

Lastly, the opening of the Dube Tradeport IDZ, adjacent to King Shaka International Airport has also opened room for more opportunities. It is said that this venture will create about 150000 jobs.