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South African drone industry to generate R6.5bn and create 34.5K jobs

At Drone Con 2017 yesterday, economist Doctor Roelof Botha presented his findings around the economic impact of the drone and UAV industry in South Africa.

While the presentation and its findings were extremely interesting, the most important part of it is best summed up the table below. It states that the drone industry will have a total turnover in South Africa of nearly R6.5 billion in 2017. This is a six-fold increase compared to 2015.

In addition, it will also employ a total of 34 500 people, which may be a more important factor, given the country’s steady spiral to a 30% unemployment rate. Again compared to 2015, this is a ten-fold increase.

These finding come from a survey of members of the Commercial Unmanned Aircraft Association of Southern Africa (CUAASA). That data was then combined with that from Quantec, Stats SA, AUVSI and Single European Sky ATM Research.

Two factors to keep in mind while looking over this information was that the economic impact assessment (EIA) this comes from was commissioned by United Drone Holdings, and it has not been peer reviewed as of yet.

You can read the full EIA created by Botha below. While the first half does focus on drones, the second half looks at the broader economic status of the country, which is surprisingly optimistic.

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