City’s business support programme heads to Delft

20 April 2023

This week, Mayoral Committee Member for Economic Growth, Alderman James Vos, joined the City’s Business Hub in Delft for an engagement with local entrepreneurs. Around 250 businesspeople attended the event.

Here in South Africa, start-ups have a very high failure rate because new business owners don't have the informational resources to help them navigate the shocks and trends of an ever-changing economic environment. This is where Cape Town stands apart. Through our Business Helpdesk, we have attended to 2 482 enquiries in the last year. We have also had 2 385 attendees at our various training sessions over the past year,' said Alderman Vos.

The activation saw the entrepreneurs receive a full day of workshops covering a range of matters such as how to apply for informal trading bays, costing and pricing of products, marketing, processes around applications for certificates of acceptability, and necessary information when applying for finance for one's enterprise.

There was also a consultation desk for business owners to bring their queries to the helpdesk officials and discussion areas with representatives from City partners such as the Small Enterprise Development Agency, Small Enterprise Finance Agency, the Craft and Design Institute, and the National Youth Development Agency.

'By accessing this knowledge, many SMMEs have become vendors for the City and various corporations, thus growing their operations and workforces,' said Alderman Vos.

Since launching in March 2021, the mobile Business Hub has been to communities across the metro, such as Philippi, Gugulethu, Durbanville, Belhar, Khayelitsha, Lotus River, and Atlantis, engaging with hundreds of Capetonians.

'The accessibility and turn-around time of this helpdesk is one of the reasons why Cape Town has gained a reputation as a start-up capital in Africa. A big part of this is the fact that the Business Hub goes to entrepreneurs in communities that often do not have the time or financial resources to make it to the helpdesk office in Cape Town CBD. I encourage small business owners in the metro to reach out to our Business Hub team who will quickly respond to your query and take advantage of the training we have made available both in person and online,' said Alderman Vos.