Dube TradePort Newsletter To Stakeholders
Posted by Vincent
Dear Valued Stakeholders
As we work to contribute to the building back of KwaZulu-Natal's economy, it is encouraging to note that despite the difficult operating environment, Dube TradePort has been able to maintain high occupancy levels of all leasable facilities within its precinct. The market is also showing strong demand for mini-factory units catering to SMMEs. There is notable momentum in TradeZone 2 the DTPC industrial precinct.
The second phase of the Dube TradeZone is well progressed. Recently, Synergy Blenders, a local producer of acoustic soda, launched the start of its construction and LM Diapers will also be relocating from TradeZone 1 to bigger premises in this Phase 2 to accommodate its expanding operations. Futurelife will be commissioning a new manufacturing facility in TradeZone 1 from January 2023.
We are pleased that in the face of the recent floods our infrastructure remained resilient and has been able to ensure business continuity for DTPC tenants and clients, as the corporation had worked to provide its tenants with various support through the provision of non-potable water deliveries among other services.
Moving forward, we expect an easing of these challenges as extensive repair work is undertaken at the Tongaat Water Works, and plans are now well advanced to construct a dedicated reservoir which will provide long-term stability of water supply in the area.
Developing climate-resilient infrastructure has come to the fore of the DTPC planning and development approach as we grapple with these weather events that have redefined the expectations for our developments going forward.
Other notable developments have been the steady recovery of air connectivity with the Middle Eastern hub carriers, Emirates, Qatar and Turkish returning services to Durban and Airlink providing African connections to Harare. On the domestic front, we are recovering our connectivity and recently Lift Airlines introduced air services between Johannesburg and Durban and recently announce an expansion of this route to Cape Town starting November 2022.
This growth in air services has had a direct impact on the steady recovery in cargo volumes we have seen within our Dube Cargo Terminal and expect further growth as the frequency of flights operated globally increases. Additionally, we have ensured that our Dube AiRoad road freight fleet has obtained a Customs Licence for the transport of bonded goods, enabling the operation to provide customers with the additional service offering of transporting bonded goods, between King Shaka International Airport and major centres within South Africa.
As an organisation our goal is to contribute to the country's mission to build back better and build an enabling environment for growth, I remain confident that we will find lasting solutions to each of the challenges that face us.
As we come to the close of this year, on behalf of the Dube TradePort team, I would like to wish you a happy and safe holiday season and a prosperous New Year.
Hamish Erskine
Chief Executive Officer
Flights at Durban's King Shaka International Airport have shown a steady recovery in the last year, as the airport has seen the resumption of all three of its Middle Eastern hub carriers.
Additionally, multiple domestic airlines have also restored routes connecting KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) travellers to other major centres within the country albeit, some airlines have done so on a reduced scale. However, the introduction of new air services by domestic airlines like SAA, CemAir, Lift and Airlink bodes well for growth over time. King Shaka International Airport's June 2022 traffic volumes show that recovery has reached 56% of its pre-pandemic levels. The rate of recovery was dampened by the grounding and later liquidation of Comair which accounted for close to 35% of the domestic capacity.
Leading the charge in driving route development within the province has been Durban Direct, a multi-entity and departmental committee of KwaZulu-Natal, which is leading the coordination and promotion of air services into King Shaka International Airport, of which Dube TradePort is a founding member.
Recently, the Durban Direct team attended the 2022 Routes World Development Forum in Las Vegas, the aviation industry's most prominent network development event. An event where notable travel destinations and global airports get an opportunity to put forward business cases to airline route planners on highlighting the potential benefits of introducing air services to their airports.
In 2015, Durban got an opportunity to host Routes World, since then, Durban's, King Shaka International Airport has seen a rapid increase in the number of its air services.
This is due in part, to the airline route planners getting an opportunity to have a first-hand experience of Durban as a city and as a gateway to the rest of KwaZulu-Natal. They had an opportunity to experience the people and culture, and see all the possibilities in business and leisure travel, beyond the numbers, allowing them to gauge the prospects of the destination and making a compelling case for them to consider putting in new and expanding existing air services.
In the last seven years, Durban Direct has been working with international and domestic airlines, providing them with a set of technical and marketing incentives. Including collaborating on marketing in source markets, as well as coordinating local campaigns in conjunction with the local travel trade, freight forwarding communities and chambers of commerce.
This comprehensive and systematic approach has ensured that Durban stays top of the mind for airlines interested in emerging growth markets as they continue to see the airlines servicing our market doing well, giving them the confidence to make the same consideration of entering the market. It’s the success of the air services that we already have that have been a testament to the growth that airlines can derive from Durban as a source market and a destination.
Key to Durban Directs’ medium-term plans is restoring passenger and cargo volumes to pre-pandemic levels and resuming more regional connectivity, to destinations like Mozambique, Zambia and Botswana, a plan which has received a boost with the resumption and growth in frequency of the important Durban-Harare route.
On the other hand, the long-term plans include growing King Shaka International Airport's air services to include direct air services into western Europe, South Asia, and the Far East.
With cyber security front and centre for business, the KwaZulu-Natal-based Honeycomb Solution Architects is adding a new suite of IT solutions to its offerings, in collaboration with Dube TradePort Special Economic Zone‘s Dube iConnect a local cloud computing service provider.
Honeycomb, a woman black-owned IT company, which focuses on delivering 'wall-to-wall' solutions for businesses on a Microsoft platform, is set to offer backup and disaster recovery services using VEEAM back-up and replication software, integrated with Dube iConnect’s cloud data storage platform.
The company ventured into disaster recovery systems in 2019. “We saw a gap in the market, particularly the public sector, where organisations were failing audits as they did not have a data back-up system to ensure business continuity in the event of a disaster,” said Maryann Govender, Marketing Director of Honeycomb.
This new line of business has provided significant growth for the company, and led it to recently winning the Dube TradePort Special Economic Zones’ 'Best Software Innovation' client award for the IT reseller, which has delivered significant growth to Dube iConnect.
“By adding VEEAM as an alternative integrator on the Dube iConnect platform, for systems back-up and disaster recovery, we expect this growth to continue,” said Dube TradePort Special Economic Zones’, Steve Johnson, Key Accounts Manager, within Dube iConnect.
In conjunction with Dreamtech Systems, a leader in designing and implementing digital solutions, Honeycomb will offer asset management, IOS and IoT systems that provide smart infrastructure for public and private organisations. By simply plugging into standard finance infrastructure, the solution can manage an organisation’s content, building and assets smartly.
Honeycomb is well-placed to take Dreamtech’s products to market as the sales team has the backing of the technical arm of Dreamtech and Dube TradePort Special Economic Zone infrastructure.
During the past eight years, Honeycomb has developed a successful track record for providing ICT solutions that are dependable, flexible, secure and accurate to assist customers to improve their productivity.
“All our design implementations are delivered using best practices and highly-skilled resources,” said Maryann Govender
“Dube iConnect is a perfect partner. Being able to use Dube TradePort Special Economic Zone’s server rooms for cloud-based data storage, backup and disaster recovery has provided our clients with exceptional service. Dube iConnect is a well-known brand with proven up-time of 99.9% and we have not had a client with downtime on their system,” she said, adding that the partnership had enabled their company to be sustainable.
The company's client base includes organisations such as Grindrod Group, Motus Car Group, WIBC (Won’t it be Cool), Ithala, the Gauteng Partnership Fund, Human Sciences Research Council, Broadband Infraco, Public Investment Corporation, Richards Bay Industrial Development Zone, Mpumalanga Provincial Government, Mpumalanga Tourism and Parks Agency, SEDA, IBASA, KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health and Health Systems Trust, to name a few.
Dube TradePort Special Economic Zone is meeting investors' demand for secure manufacturing and logistics real estate in Durban. The new Dube TradeZone 2 development offers world-class light industrial real-estate with globally integrated logistics infrastructure, that creates a highly competitive 'Greenfield' business operating environment.
Located adjacent to Durban’s King Shaka International Airport, this new development brings on stream 38 hectares of highly secure light industrial real-estate, consisting of 23 sites ranging in size from 3 000m² to 57 000m², levelled and fully services with utilities provided to the boundary of each site.
Located within both a Special Economic Zone and Customs Controlled Area, the development is also strategically located close to the Dube Cargo Terminal, with direct airside access to King Shaka International Airport, thus ensuring a fully-integrated supply chain and a seamless cargo flow, ultimately increasing the speed and efficiency of businesses located here.
Dube TradeZone 2 comprises efficient infrastructure, tight security, and benefits from the comprehensive support services provided by Dube TradePort Special Economic Zone.
Strategically located at the intersection of local and global intermodal transport routes, the precinct is seamlessly integrated with intermodal road, rail, seaport and airport infrastructure, providing manufacturers and exporters located within Dube TradeZone 2 with exceptional supply chain efficiencies and market access, coupled with the advantages of business agility and speed to market.
Easy access to major road networks, including the N2, M4 and R102, reduced transit costs for last-mile and first-mile imports and exports, given the proximity of the Dube Cargo Terminal (airfreight) and the port of Durban.
Offering 49-year land leases, with an option to renew, to 99 years, with no up-front costs for raw land and infrastructure, Dube TradeZone 2 is positioned to enable long-term operational and financial growth for local and foreign businesses.
For more information about Dube TradeZone 2 investment opportunities, please email:
Bakers Gallery, a black-youth-owned bakery business, is among the first tenants to move into the Dube TradePort Mini Factories.
The business, which specialises in high-end celebratory cakes, is growing as an affordable mass-market cake and pastries offering.
Moving into the mass-market cake line was a COVID-19 survival plan when the speciality celebratory cake orders halted, and it worked.
“In 2020, we had our first break into the retail sector with a contract to supply cake loaves, cake slices, cake rings, cupcakes, biscuits, tarts, and pastries to a Spar store. Within eight months we were supplying 10 Durban-based Spar supermarkets and we needed to expand to bigger, better premises,” said Skhumbuzo Maphanga, an Executive Pastry Chef with international experience and the founder of Bakers Gallery SA.
Dube TradePort’s Mini Factories were ideal. “We were looking for security, a constant supply of power even during load-shedding, ease of access and parking for our clients, and a well-kept environment that provides a good image,” said Skhumbuzo
Maphanga started Bakers Gallery in 2013 as a side-line hobby supplying a home industry shop in Morningside, to supplement his Durban ICC Pasty Chef’s salary. By 2018, his cake baking had grown to such an extent that he was working around the clock, and he had to make a choice between his full-time job or building a business. The latter won, and Bakers Gallery SA was registered as a business.
Following in his older brother’s footsteps, Siphesihle Maphanga also trained as a chef and was drawn into the business. Being creative in the family, his forte is the intricate decoration and painting of celebratory cakes.
Another partner in the business is Ntobeko Ndlovu, a qualified educator and a medical scientist who has brought his strategic thinking and business management skills to Bakers Gallery, changing it from a hobby into a business.
“He saw the potential in this line of business and gave up teaching temporarily and jumped in with an aim of changing the ‘side-line hobby’ into a formal business. He brought in proper processes, bookkeeping and financial management which were crucial in us raising funding from one of the big five financial institutions,” said Skhumbuzo With an understanding of equity in hindsight, he has also managed to use his skills to attract and bring on board private investors to invest in the business. And for a very long time, he also served as a company driver when the business was still limping financially.
Ntobeko is also driving the processes towards achieving municipal Certification of Acceptability, which is crucial to building the business. In the longer term, the team’s personal goal is to achieve Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) and GLOBAL GAP compliance.
With a business plan backed by detailed research and documented growth and demand for their products, the trio’s future plans are to supply retail central distribution centres and use online shopping platforms, like Takealot, to market their cookie line.
“The evidence is there. In a space of eight months, we were selling into 10 Spar stores. This tells us that the demand for our product is very high. If we are to meet our goals of supplying our products nationally, we will need to run two to three shifts a day to achieve the volumes. We also anticipate that by also selling cookies in bulk online, we will be well positioned to grow exponentially,” said Skhumbuzo
Bakers Gallery is also looking to collaborate with caterers supplying cakes, cookies and desserts. Recently, they supplied 1200 desserts for a Midlands wedding. They have also supplied the likes of Durban ICC and Balmoral Hotel with desserts for big functions.
They have started short baking courses and plan to open a training facility for people who have a passion for baking and the art of cake making, which they have opened to disadvantaged youth. “It will also be a great way to teach people how to bake and empower themselves by means of selling,” said Skhumbuzo
In addition to the three executives, Bakers Gallery employs four people – three bakers who started as dishwashers and were trained to bake from scratch.
Dube TradePort's Cargo Terminal has seen a steady recovery in cargo as King Shaka International Airport's passenger route network gradually returns to pre-pandemic volumes, with ad hoc freighter and charter flights contributing to the air cargo capacity of the airport.
On the 12th of April 2022, KwaZulu-Natal and Durban in particular experienced a destructive flood, that compromised key infrastructure including roads, water and fuel pipelines. King Shaka International Airport has since serviced several relief flights from places as far afield as Qatar and the UAE, whose cargo has been processed through the Dube Cargo Terminal.
The cargo terminal has also seen the regular arrival of ship spares and equipment that support the vessels docked in Durban and Richards Bay harbour, as well as the relocation of endangered rhinos in an effort to spawn new populations in other areas throughout Africa.
Additionally, the US military has also been using some of our facilities to support some of their joint training missions in the region.
These activities have seen Dube Cargo Terminal handling a number of unscheduled flights.
Looking forward, from Dube Cargo Terminal's perspective, the organisation aims to begin the process by scaling up its resources dedicated to driving the implementation of our cargo airlift strategy, which will be the foundation for developing the local cargo market and positioning Durban as a secondary gateway onto Southern Africa.
The Cargo Development Strategy also puts forward a strong focus on collaboration among, airlines, freight forwarders, shippers and other key stakeholders, which the Dube Cargo Terminal team is ready to do.
Dube TradePort has worked to ensure that none of its activities adversely affect the environment, and has implemented several initiatives to mitigate the unsustainable use of natural resources within the precinct.
The organisation's commitment to sustainability has ensured that 20% of the energy used in the Dube AgriZone greenhouses is now obtained from renewable sources.
As a responsible organisation, Dube TradePort lives up to its values inscribed in the 1972 designation of World Environment Day by the United Nations, as it's a pivotal act that has become a clarion call to the wide adoption of transformational environmentally conscious policies while raising awareness around the problems our environment face.
Commerce activities can have both a direct and indirect environmental impact through production processes, supply chains and waste. To ensure environmental sustainably - both individuals and the corporations in our communities must make a significant shift to a greener way of being.
Dube TradePort’s operational activities in the areas of water, waste, and energy management have contributed to a cleaner, greener, and more sustainable environment.
In line with this year’s ‘Only One Earth’ theme, Dube TradePort recognises the need to contribute toward the global mission of halving annual greenhouse emissions by 2030. This is explicitly stated in the organisation's Environmental Policy and is an acknowledgement of the organisation’s commitment to the necessary conservation of finite resources and the importance it attaches to minimising fossil fuel usage in order to mitigate the release of greenhouse gas emissions, which contributes to climate change.
The organisation’s ultimate aim is to become carbon-neutral through the implementation of its Carbon Management Strategy.
This planet is our only home and as part of global society, Dube TradePort fully comprehends the role played by the environment in providing the key natural resources upon which businesses and economies are founded. In return, the organisation reaffirms its commitment to the sustainable use of natural resources, so as to prevent the degradation of the environment, and to ensure its preservation for future generations.
In the last 9 years since the launch of Dube TradePort's Skills Development Programme, through the Corporate Social Investment department, Dube TradePort has invested over R 25 million in youth development. The programme has become an integral part of the organisation's initiatives aimed at advancing economic transformation and enhancing the economic participation of previously disadvantaged South Africans within our economy.
As a responsible corporate citizen, Dube TradePort continues to work towards empowering youth and people living with disabilities continuance, within the surrounding communities. Through, bursaries, apprenticeship programmes and internships, Dube TradePort has been steadily working to capacitate students with the skills to get them ready for the working world.
Since 2013, the programme has assisted over 300 graduates with much-needed practical work experience in a variety of sectors, allowing students to complete their qualifications and overall become more employable. The programme also provides bursaries to over 150 students and 53% of the beneficiaries have been young women.
Dube TradePort's Skills Development Programme Encompasses:
An Internship Programme – works to serve unemployed graduates, who require work experience to become employable. Interns are also placed in an accredited leadership program where they acquire a variety of skills that help them become more employable.
An In-Service Training Programme – seeks to equip students with the practical experience they need to complete their qualifications.
An Apprenticeship Programme – aimed at enabling students to attain the scarce skills they need to become artisans.
A Bursary scheme – aimed at assisting needy students who are studying Engineering, Information Technology, Agriculture and other scares skills. The assistance is also targeted to students who are not able to get NSFAS financial support.
All the programmes have been steadily growing and this year alone the Internship programme has 65 young people, making up 24% of the total workforce. The organisation plans to invest at least R5 million annually to grow and sustain these programs.
