Remarks by the KwaZulu-Natal MEC for Economic Development and Tourism the honourable Michael Mabuyakhulu on the occasion of a gala dinner for the Maritime Skills Summit hosted by South African Maritime Safety Authority (SAMSA)

Programme Director;
The Mayor of the City of Mhlathuze, Cllr Elphas Mbatha;
The Premier of the Province of KwaZulu-Natal Dr Zl Mkhize;
The National Minister Of Transport Mr Sbusiso Ndebele;
The CEO of SAMSA Commander Tsietsi Mokhele;
The CEO of Transnet National Ports Authority, Mr Tau Morwe;
Dignitaries present;
Ladies and gentlemen; all protocol observed

We wish to start by expressing our gratitude to the South African Maritime Safety Authority for organising such a wonderful summit which has served as a theatre of ideas about how we can use the maritime sector as a springboard for economic growth in our country and to explore employment opportunities for our people in this thriving industry.

Programme Director, even though we were not around for the duration of the day, we can say without any fear of contradiction that today’s deliberations about opportunities in the maritime industry have not only been an eye-opener to many of us, but they have exposed us to, pardon the pun, an ocean of opportunities in this industry.

This is even more critical owing to the fact that while other nations have always exploited the benefits of the maritime sector, the reality is that while we have a strategic advantage of being located next to the coast, we have barely scratched the surface in terms harnessing the economic value of this.

Given the depth of information that has been provided during the deliberations today, our address tonight will be brief for the simple reason that gala dinners are not occasions for lengthy speeches but for all of us to let our hair down and take stock of what we have achieved during the day. However, there are a couple of issues we want to touch on tonight.

As many of you are aware, one of the structural challenges that have been identified by the New Growth Path as impeding our efforts to grow the economy is the issue of skills.

The New Growth Path, which is our loadstar for economic growth, has it that we need to come up with extra-ordinary measures to empower our people and create new avenues of skills in order to deal with the issue of unemployment. There is no doubt that the maritime industry is one of the sectors that we need to focus on in order to open opportunities for our people.

According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, goods transported by sea in 2009 amounted to 7.8 billion tons down from 8.2 billion tons recorded in 2008. Developing countries accounted for the largest share of the seaborne trade, reflecting their growing resilience to economic setbacks and an increasingly leading role of emerging economies in driving global trade.

With the tectonic shift in the global economic landscape and the developing countries increasingly holding their own in the world economic affairs this, Programme Director, tells us that the maritime industry will, like other industries, be dominated by the developing countries in the foreseeable future. The question that we need to answer tonight is how do we prepare ourselves for this?

This summit is, therefore, a good start.

As the province of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) we have taken concrete steps to ensure that we are not only leaders in the maritime sector in the country but we begin to create space for our people to play a role in this industry.

As many of you are aware, we are the only province in the country which has an institution, the KZN Sharks Board, which is the global leader in protecting bathers from shark attacks. Over and above this, the KZN Sharks Board is charged with conducting research on all marine-living resources.

However, it has always been our belief that there is a lot we can achieve if we work with other like-minded organisations which are also in the maritime sector.

In order to accomplish this objective, we have recently signed a memorandum of understanding with the South African Maritime Safety Authority (SAMSA) to explore synergies between the two organisations and more importantly to ensure that are able to tap into opportunities that will accrue out of the changes in the global maritime industry.

The scope of cooperation involves identifying opportunities that will promote science, technology, maritime, beach, marine tourism and a gamut of other activities related to the maritime industry.

As many of us are aware, KwaZulu-Natal is one of the provinces in the country which, its smorgasbord of tourism products, has 900 kilometres of pristine coastline which if exploited to the fullest, can bring tangible benefits not only to the people of this province but the country as a whole.

Over and above this, our province has identified the cruise tourism industry as one of the sectors which have a potential for growth and a huge job absorptive capacity. In this regard, our province is not only an active member of the Cruise Indian Ocean Association but we are part of the secretariat of this body.

A couple of months ago, our province had the privilege to host the Sea Trade Africa Workshop during Indaba which brought together a number of important players in the cruise tourism sector. This development further underscored the importance of the maritime industry to our province.

We, therefore, believe that this memorandum of understanding we have signed with SAMSA will not be a document that will gather dust somewhere in our offices, but will give added impetus to efforts to exploit opportunities in the maritime sector.

One of our long term objectives as the province of KwaZulu-Natal is to start a maritime centre of excellence which will be run by the Sharks Board in tandem with other partners including the Moses Kotane Institute, one of our public entities, as well as SAMSA. This will be a first for the African continent.

We have already started the preliminary work in this regard. Our objective is for the province of KwaZulu-Natal to be not only at the cutting edge of technological innovation in the maritime sector, but to produce a cadre of skilled personnel which can compete with the best in the global maritime sector.

Programme director, it can be argued that the growth that we see in the developing world is partly as a result of the global economic downturn, which saw investors and businesses moving into the developing world because that is where a promise of maximum returns shone.

Economists, including the International Monetary Fund, have already warned that the European Union needs to get its act together or else its troubles could precipitate another downturn. The sad state of the US economy is a tale that has been told a number of times. What these global economic developments mean is that the developing world is at the cusp of achieving unimaginable economic growth if it grabs the opportunities that the global economic dynamics have presented.

The maritime sector, therefore, needs to ready itself to grab the existing and the prospective opportunities for growth. This body of stakeholders and role-players in this sector has the task to turn around the fortunes of this sector, and by extension, of the economy of the developing world. We need to seize this opportunity and make it count for our region.

It is also for this reason that our department will, in a few months time host a Maritime Summit, with the express objective of opening up this sector to all people including women and the youth but also to ensure that we utilise this natural resource to grow our economy. We trust that, as stakeholders, you will participate in this interaction for the growth of the sector in our country.

In conclusion we wish to once again thank SAMSA for organisation such a wonderful initiative. We have no doubt that it will emerge with a number of resolutions that will position our country as a global player in the maritime industry.

I thank you