KZN Business Sense News

Plans are afoot to replicate Los Angeles’ Blue Economy Projects in Durban

EThekwini Municipality is leveraging on international best practice in the blue economy which encompasses all ocean-related industries, such as maritime transport, fisheries, renewable energy and tourism.

This comes after the delegation from the City led by Economic Development and Planning Committee Chairperson Councillor Thembo Ntuli held a successful meeting with the team from AltaSea at the Port of Los Angeles in the United States of America (USA).

The delegation in USA includes City Manager Musa Mbhele and Head of Catalytic Projects in the
City and Acting Chief Operations Officer George Mohlakoana.

AltaSea brings together the world’s finest climate and marine scientists and engineers to conduct breakthrough research and discover solutions to food and energy supply, climate change, and ocean exploration.

AltaSea President and CEO Terry Tamminen said their focus was on investing in economic activity that seeks to sustainably use ocean resources to promote the wellbeing of ocean ecosystems, enable
economic growth, create jobs, and improve livelihoods.

“We are so excited that representatives from the City of Durban are here because we think it has so much in common with what we are doing. AltaSea is a non-profit organisation that was established to take over a 35-acre campus in the Port of Los Angeles’ old historic warehouse and renovate them
into a modern blue economy campus. So the blue economy encompasses aquaculture both on land and at sea, including renewable energy from the ocean, underwater robotics and anything that has to do with the ocean. We are hoping that we can create a similar AltaSea facility in Durban and even
in the port of Durban, where we can share what we know through our researchers and our companies,” said Tamminen.

City Manager Musa Mbhele said replicating the AltaSea project will catapult the growth trajectory of the City of Durban to even greater heights.

“We had a very successful engagement at the Port of Los Angeles and met the President of AtlaSea a company that runs an incubator programme for business that are linked to the blue ocean economy and they shared with us a number of opportunities for developing small businesses and have shown keen interest to help various role players in Durban to participate meaningfully in the blue economy. They have also promised that they will support the city in applying for funding from the Bloomberg
Philanthrophic fund to support the ideas that we have for our city,” said Mbhele.

The engagements with the team at AltaSea and destination promotion activations currently underway in Los Angeles form part of the city’s aggressive drive to grow the economy and attract international investors to the Resurgence Conference taking place at the Inkosi Albert Luthuli International Convention Centre (Durban ICC) from 17 to 21 July 2024.

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