USCDA is proud to also announce the listing of projects from our area in the SA Presidential brochure. This particular brochure was to be circulated on the Investment Summit hosted by the SA President, Mr Cyril Ramaphosa at Sandon Convention Centre. For our area, this is a step towards the right direction. The listed projects are: Margate Airport renovation, TechnoHub and lastly Ithala Bio-Fuels. The listing of projects from our area was secured through stakeholder partnerships such as Trade & Investment KZN

The bold initiative taken by RNM in developing an Investment Protocol is commendable and USCDA is encouraging others to follow suit in particular Umdoni and Ugu. The aim is to avoid undesirable and unintended consequences of intra-municipal competition for investment but rather a geographic spread of investment to other areas.Reaching New Heights USCDA prides itself for contributing to youth development in the area. The Agency has travelled a mile with Mr Nkosi Phumbula, knocking on doors of several government entities for assistance as and when required.We would like to congratulate Mr Nkosi Phungula for who is one of our agro-processors from uMzumbe area for continuously putting Ugu on the map. Mr Phungula and his company was selected to exhibit at the well know exhibition in Johannesburg called South African International Exhibition (SAITEX). His passion and love for his craft is commended and the agency wishes him well in pushing the Nkosi da King Brand forward.

Coming back home in KZN, USCDA has managed to draw attention of provincial government entities that are critical in ensuring committing new investments into the area. This is more evident by the recent partnership with Trade & Investment KZN. As a result of these interactions and commitment TIKZN recently hosted a Business Retention and Expansion Session at Margate Hotel.A strategic partnership has been formed with Trade and Investment KZN for a survey that will come up with recommendations on key issues stifling growth and expansion of businesses in Ugu and the sample area has been chosen as Marburg. The closure of the Coca-Cola factory has been a worrying factor that prompted USCDA to engage TIKZN to sponsor the research. Recommendations from the findings will be tabled at the Ray Nkonyeni Council scheduled for September.

On 4- 5 May 2018 USCDA attended the Japan- Africa Trade Forum held in Sandton. There was tremendous interest shown by Japanese companies on Ugu following from aggressive marketing at be Forum. Follow up engagements are continuing with the Japanese External Trade Organization (JETRO) and the facilitation role played by Executive Management Invest SA is highly commendable. In addition, USCDA marketing brochures have been distributed to SA major priority markets such as BRICS countries and others as well as the US through the Embassy and His Excellency Ambassador M Mahlangu. The ambassador has committed that when addressing investors to come to RSA, he will have a strong bias to Ugu as USCDA is the only entity that has directly approached the SA embassy in the US, circulating the brochures.

Without any doubt Ugu district has been popularly known as a region dominated by agricultural and tourism sectors. Whilst we acknowledge that, USCDA has taken the initiative to ensure that Ugu district is not left behind in incorporating new/emerging industries into the economy. This includes encouraging and cultivating the idea ofdiversifying existing industries and adding new globally emerging industries. Ithala Bio-fuels is a new project that will be implemented.Funding amounting to R14.5m from the African Development Bank (ADB) has been secured for planning approvals for the implementation of a ground-breaking alternative energy project in Gunns Drift area, Harding. Project Steering Committee is being established comprising of representatives from KZN (Harding) and the Eastern Cape (Bizana) to make sure there is maximum buy inn when implementation is at full scale in the next 3 years.

After several interactions with key stakeholders (government and the private sector) for funding to implement NSNP, the KZN Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) has made available an amount of R3million for seed funding.This effectively means that USCDA will in the future be hard at work mobilising people in rural areas, particularly women-owned cooperatives to engage in extensive cultivation with the sole aim of supplying the lucrative school nutrition programme. Over a short period of time, purchasing of vegetables from conventional markets will decrease on a sliding scale in favour of community projects scattered all over Ugu. This is in line with the target of at least 100 hectares of fallow fields in traditional areas converted into high value cultivated lands and the NSNP has been identified as a catalyst in providing a stable market for the purchase of produce from small scale agricultural enterprises and cooperatives. Seed funding from Cogta is highly appreciated and a word of gratitude goes to the Hon MEC Nomusa Dube and HoD Tubane.