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Western Cape Premier Gerald Morkel is confident that the new garment plant of South Africa's largest Chinese investor in manufacturing, will come the Western Cape's way, providing 1500 jobs for the people of this province.

The investor already has its R480 million-textile factory in the Western Cape's industrial town of Atlantis, employing over 450 workers. Premier Morkel was asked by Wesgro, the Western Cape Trade and Investment Agency, to help secure a second factory by the world famous garment manufacturer in Atlantis. Being aware of the fact that the Western Cape is competing with other regions in South Africa for the garment factory, Mr Morkel rearranged his Far East programme in August this year to include talks with Chinese manufacturers.

Armed with Western Cape productivity and skills statistics and an undertaking that the province was prepared to go the extra mile to make a success of this project, the Premier personally visited the group's headquarters in Hong Kong.

Whilst Novel textiles local director, Paul Chan, would not commit himself to disclosing the whereabouts of the new garment factory, Mr Morkel says, "there were positive signs that my visit had paid off. I truly believe that the Chinese will be investing in Atlantis knowing that the Western Cape is fully committed to service delivery. The harder we all work at service delivery the more successes we will see in the Western Cape," he said.

Enquiries: Rustun Mohammed at (021) 418 6464 or (083) 485 8904

Issued by: Office of the Premier, Western Cape, 5 October 2001