REMARKS BY KZN PREMIER SIHLE ZIKALALA DURING THE LAUNCH OF THE MARA GROUP SMARTPHONE FACTORY AT THE DUBE TRADE PORT, 17 OCTOBER 2019
His Excellency, President Cyril Ramaphosa;
Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr Ebrahim Patel;
All Ministers, MPs, and MPLs in our midst;
MEC for EDTEA and Leader of Government Business in KZN, Ms Nomsa Dube-Ncube;
MECs,Mayors, and Senior Government Officials;
CEOs and Chairpersons of State Owned Entities;
Our Host, the Mayor of eThekwini, Cllr Mxolisi Kaunda;
Representatives of Mara Group led by its founder, Mr Ashish Thakkar;
Captains of Industry, Social Partners, and Members of the Fourth Estate;
Honoured Guests;
Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen;
The people of KwaZulu-Natal are profoundly grateful, immensely honoured, and truly humbled to make history in opening South Africa’s first smartphone production plant here at our successful Special Economic Zone (SEZ), the Dube Trade Port.
Today is thus an opportune moment to applaud effective leadership and to commend the exemplary hard work behind the scenes by a number of people from all spheres of government who steadfastly worked with our partners from the Mara Group to make today a shining success.
It’s a day carrying great hope for the people of KwaZulu-Natal and our country, and in this regard, we wish to applaud our President Cyril Ramaphosa for his tireless strides in promoting investments in our country.
Many of us are aware that if there is one thing that keeps the President awake at night, it is his deep concern for the multitudes of South Africans who are unemployed and citizens who go to bed on an empty stomach. So we hope that today’s launch of this state of the art smartphone factory will go far in strengthening his resolve to continue championing our government’s cause of reducing unemployment, inequality, and poverty.
What we are witnessing today is a manifestation of one of the successes of the inaugural South Africa Investment Conference which was led by the President in October 2018.
At the Conference, as KZN, we presented concrete, detailed, investment opportunities accompanied by our booklet which identified a wide range of business opportunities in various economic sectors totalling US19.1 billon. The sectors included manufacturing, agro-processing, film & media, logistics, medicine, property development and tourism.
These opportunities are spread throughout KwaZulu-Natal and include eThekwini, KwaDukuza, Mandeni, uMuziwabantu and uMhlathuze municipalities.
Our research told us that just with these targeted investments, we stood a chance to create 800 000 temporary jobs during construction and 410 000 permanent jobs.
We discussed the business value of SEZs like the Dube Trade Port and Richards Bay and the KZN One Stop Shop which eliminates red tape for investors. We had a simple message: KZN is open for business.
From dreams and plans, today we are realising the successful results of determination, focus, and partnership with the Mara Group. We are surely emboldened by their vote of confidence in the South African and provincial economy.
Today they join many other successful South African and international brands that are domiciled in KZN, and we wish to assure them that we are fully committed to the success of this enterprise.
To Africa’s award winning entrepreneur and founder of Mara Group, Mr. Ashish Thakkar, we wish to thank you and your company for making KwaZulu-Natal the home of smartphones produced in South Africa and our beloved continent.
As KwaZulu-Natal, we are proud to be associated with a brand that defines itself as pan-African and which believes in the future of the continent.
We are also happy that this important development supports the Durban Aerotropolis initiative whose main objective is to build a 21st century airport city around King Shaka International airport as a way of positioning KZN as the trade gateway to the Southern Africa region.
The Durban Aerotropolis has the potential to both catalyse social, spatial and economic transformation while localising the benefits of global trends through a robust and flexible long-term development framework.
Your Excellency, President Ramaphosa and our Esteemed Guests,
The launch of the smartphone by Mara Group transcends the inherent value of business, trade, and profits. It goes beyond reigniting inclusive economic growth and creating jobs. It is not just a simple story that fulfils our aspirations for industrialisation and the great promise of localisation.
More than that, it goes to the core of our being. It is essentially about our identity, heritage, and pride as an African country.
This is the inclusive pan-African vision of our ancestors and the ideal of the African Renaissance and the African century which are all encapsulated in Agenda 2063 of the AU. It is also the Afrocentric imagination of the world envisioned in the NDP which construes our nation as having an unbroken umbilical cord with the people of Africa and the diaspora.
This manufacturing story of Africa’s first smartphone is a sharp reminder of Africa’s contribution to world civilisation, engineering, medicine, and technological innovation.
Today is not the time to remind our children that Africa is the home of science, mathematics, industry and commerce. In another time, we must share with them the inspiring stories around Timbuktu, Thulamela, Mapungubwe, and Great Zimbabwe.
Today we do not have the time to speak about the beautiful textile and garments that West Africa came to be known for long before that terrible experience of slavery and colonialism
Had time been our friend, we would have reflected briefly on how white compatriots came and studied in Africa making the ancient Greek Philosopher Heredotus to say of the Ethiopians:
"Wise men occupying the Upper Nile, men of long life, whose manners and customs pertain to the Golden Age, those virtuous mortals, whose feasts and banquets are honoured by Jupiter himself."
Ours is not a story of Africa fossilised in a distant African past. The Mara story is a continuation of the story of ingenuity and technological innovation that is at the centre of our identity as a continent.
It is part of the story of the largest telescope in the Southern hemisphere, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), the story of the use of artificial intelligence and agricultural drones to improve farming, the manufacturing of 3D printers from e-waste in Togo, and the biomedical smart jacket invention in Uganda which is capable of diagnosing malaria faster than a doctor.
Today, we are dispelling the myth that Africa consumes what it does not produce or produce what it does not consume.
We are taking a giant leap in our journey of African Renaissance, cultural identity, and entrepreneurial revolution.
We will learn and marvel from the early days of two-way radios to the revolution of the first mass produced cell phones on the 3rd of April 1973 by Motorola.
Many innovations have occurred in this development in the last twenty years including the introduction of Emojis, texting, web-browsing, and camera making it a companion that many people and companies would be unable to operate optimally without today.
During the evolution of the smartphone, other dominant players lost their market share to other new players.
And in all that we do, we must continue to pay attention to customer needs and study the gaps in the market.
If there’s one more thing that Africa is about to contribute to the cell phone technology, it is sheer beauty and artistic design because you cannot define Africa outside the beauty of its rich cultures and traditions.
We have no doubt that the journey we are starting today in KZN will inspire the youth of our country and the continent to look deep inside themselves and their surroundings to give the world the true African signature and spirit in this indispensable communication tool.
Mara, we welcome you to the Kingdom of the Zulus, and side by side we will journey to all corners of our glorious continent and across the seas.
Let us buy local and save local jobs.
It’s in our hands to ‘make Africa the tree of life’ as we say in the AU anthem.
And Let Us Grow South Africa Together!
I thank you!