Ease of Doing Business

Cape Town’s transformation into a business-friendly hub marks an important milestone in its developmental journey. The launch of its Ease-of-Doing-Business programme is a clear indication of the city’s commitment to creating a conducive environment for businesses and foreign direct investment in South Africa to succeed. With a key focus on delivering tangible results, the programme aims to entrench a culture of business-friendliness, establish public and private growth partnerships, and ensure the delivery of quality services. This also means leveraging the latest technologies to improve service delivery on all levels for efficiency. With these measures in place, the city of Cape Town is projected to become Africa’s most business-friendly destination. 

Africa’s Start-Up Capital is Positioned for Ease of Business 

The city recognises that many small and informal businesses face numerous constraints when it comes to business expansion, and is committed to creating the right conditions for all businesses to flourish. In 2016, the city launched an effort to improve service delivery, regulatory compliance, and ease of doing business for residents and workers through reform action plans, placing Cape Town on a world-class stage. To date, the city has been ranked among the top 150 leading start-up ecosystems globally (136th).  

Furthermore, in 2022, the city contributed 71% of the provincial GDP. With ever-expanding industries that are leading in innovation such as finance, community services, trade, manufacturing, and transport, the city is now positioned as Africa’s start-up capital.  

Deliverables for the Future

We believe that businesses and the entrepreneurs who start them are the lifeblood of any thriving society. They are the producers, innovators, employers, and service providers that grow economies and lift people out of poverty and into opportunity.  

We believe that to truly support businesses, we need to ensure that our people, processes, regulations, and systems are all geared towards this goal; that they are committed to a journey of cultural change that ensures our city stands out as Africa’s most business-friendly destination. 

Ease-of-Doing-Business Programme Goals: 

• Create a culture of business-friendliness  
• Establish public and private growth partnerships in priority industries or around specific opportunities, and leverage resources to grow businesses in areas where Cape Town is competitive 
• Create a sustainable supply of well-positioned commercial and industrial land to develop a quality-built environment that meets the needs of businesses and supports their operations  
• Delivery of quality services that are efficient, cost-effective, and reliable 
• Offer business support services that are readily available across all the city’s business-facing departments 
• Deliver consistent messaging about Cape Town being Africa’s business destination of choice 
• Leverage the latest technologies to improve service delivery to businesses 
• Establish an efficient regulatory regime, ensuring that regulations align with business interests  

Collectively, these aims and aspirations constitute the city’s ease-of-doing-business ecosystem (depicted below)

The Built Environment Value Chain Section 

When it comes to establishing the city of Cape Town as a world class city that allows for business competitiveness, the city has set various strategies in place to ensure that this is achieved. Some of the measures that have been put in place are:  

• Transferring public land  
• Getting land-use rights 
• Getting building-plan approval 
• Wayleaves 
• Getting electricity  
• Connecting to the water network 
• Getting a revenue (rates) clearance certificate  
• Obtaining a business licence 
• Informal trading permits  
• Digitisation 

As we track our progress towards this goal, we will release an annual index report that reflects our progress towards becoming the most business-friendly city in Africa. We believe that a thriving business community is vital to achieve our vision of Cape Town being a city of hope for all. That’s why we are committed to making the necessary changes to enable businesses to grow and innovate, and launch programmes for the new entrepreneur to provide much-needed employment opportunities and services that benefit society as a whole.