Pretoria – Ekurhuleni Executive Mayor Mondli Gungubele has expressed confidence in the city’s ability to host Africa’s first Airport Cities World Conference and Exhibition (ACE) next week.
The City of Ekurhuleni will host the ACE from 24 – 26 April.
“We are ready and the Gauteng province is ready to deliver a successful ACE that will leave all delegates with a remarkable memory of Ekurhuleni and South Africa in general,” the mayor said.
Alex Kirby, the Executive Vice President of Airport Cities, told the media via the telephone from the United Kingdom that he had all the confidence in Ekurhuleni’s capabilities to host a successful conference.
Gungubele said the City was ready from the day in 2010 when it won the bid to host ACE.
“When we decided to bid to host the event, we knew what was expected of us and what we are capable of doing. The time has come for us to show the world what we are made of and why Ekurhuleni is a better place to invest and stay in,” he said.
Gungubele attributed the readiness to deliver the 11th instalment of ACE to the ‘solid umbilical cord’ between the City, and the Gauteng and national governments.
He praised the cordial relations between the City, Airports Company of South Africa (ACSA) and other stakeholders.
Gungubele, who is steadily becoming known as ‘Mr Aerotropolis’ by his peers in government and political circles, said ACE serves to position the City of Ekurhuleni on the global map to attract international attention, with the view to lure investors.
This, he said, would translate into local economic growth and more jobs for ordinary people.
“ACE also is a great platform to proclaim our status as an aerotropolis, a new growth path which will also benefit more ordinary people.
“The fears that the aerotropolis is for the elite is not true, in the light of statistics that about 70 percent of ordinary people would benefit from an aerotropolis than the middle-class,” he said.
An aerotropolis is a type of urban form comprising aviation intense business and related enterprises. It is similar in form and function to a traditional metropolis, where there is a central city core and its commuter-linked suburbs.
An aerotropolis has an airport city as its core and is surrounded by clusters of aviation related enterprise. – SAnews.gov.za
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