The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) welcomes the massive R1 billion investment commitment by Hisense to support thousands of jobs and local Black (in the inclusive BBBEE sense) owned businesses at its Atlantis manufacturing facility and along the local value chain. 

Hisense,  a global electronics giant, has since it opened its Atlantis plant in 2013 steadily expanded its footprint.  Today it employs 1 300 workers directly and supports 20 000 workers across the value chain.  Investments in the plant have increased its production capacity to a massive 1 million televisions and 550 000 fridges per annum.  It now exports to 13 countries across Africa, positioning itself to take advantage of the African Continental Free Trade Area that the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (DTIC), led by Minister Ebrahim Patel, is driving.

The R1 billion investment commitment by Hisense over the next 5 years will see jobs secured and increased directly and across value chain suppliers.  It will inject massive stimulus into Atlantis, a large working class Coloured and African community that has suffered from severe neglect under two decades of rule by an indifferent Democratic Alliance (DA) in the City of Cape Town and the Western Cape.  

This is a welcome injection that will benefit thousands of workers, their families across the greater Atlantis community from Witsand to Pella and Mamre and surrounding communities along the West Coast.

It’s a positive signal that the Investment Summits convened by President Cyril Ramaphosa and driven by Minister Patel are yielding real fruits for the economy and creating jobs on the ground.  We hope that it will not be too much of a burden for the DA spin doctors who have been bleating about a divestment mirage from South Africa to suit their short-sighted desperation for votes on election day.

These real successes have been facilitated and supported by the DTIC, through the incentives it has put in place to attract investment, to the enabling environment its industrial policies have given to critical industries, to the support it has provided to emerging businesses and Black industrialists.

DTIC’s Black Industrialists Programme, once dismissed by the DA and other professional prophets of doom, is showing impressive results with 1 700 Black owned businesses supported by various DTIC programmes, now employing 161 000 workers.

These results and the positive vote of confidence by Hisense is yet another confirmation that under the leadership of President Ramaphosa and the African National Congress led government, we are turning the corner.  Society is being cleansed of the cancer of corruption and public services rebuilt, obstacles to growing the economy are being tackled and jobs secured and created.

Issued by COSATU

For further information please contact:

Matthew Parks
Acting National Spokesperson & Parliamentary Coordinator 
Cell: 082 785 0687