The Gauteng Government has identified OR Tambo as a site to set up an international cannabis trading platform. 

This was revealed by the province’s chief director of agriprocessing services, Mojlato Makoepea, who told a webinar recently that Gauteng wanted to export cannabis on an industrial scale, and to this end, special economic zones (SEZ's) were being established in the Vaal Triangle at Sedibeng and on the West Rand. The same would apply to Ekurulheni around the airport.

These SEZ’s would be regulatory “sandboxes”, which would have certain exemptions from normal business laws in order for there to be legal commercial trade in cannabis and related products.

“Part of positioning Gauteng to be the leader of cannabis is to allow trading to take place” said Makoepea.

“We envisage a cannabis trading platform like the London Metal’s Exchange. That would then be a vehicle that would enable accelerated exports. We’d look at identifying export markets and matching that with stock; all the data would be linked, like traceability and source and so on.”

Makoepa said another major development in the province is the decentralization of hemp permit applications. He said these would now be processed at a provincial level and no longer at National. He said this would enable applications to be fast-tracked. He said that Gauteng agriculture MEC Parks Tau was driving the decentralization process.