SAEx, the East Subsea Fibre-Optic Cable Project, which aims to connect South Africa with Singapore and that has reportedly been in development for more than a decade, seems to be back on track after a major investment.
According to local news resource TechCentral, a South African government entity called the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) has apparently approved project development capital to complete what is described as a definitive feasibility study for the project. Now, we are told, financial close on fundraising is expected in the second half of the year.
It’s an ambitious project: a network that will connect four continents along what is described as a unique but resilient southern hemispheric all-wet routing.
The IDC and a company called SAEx International Management Limited (SIML) will be co-sponsors of the SAEx East project – the first phase of an envisaged cable system that is also intended to deliver a route from South Africa to the Americas across the Atlantic Ocean (SAex stands for South Atlantic Express). When completed, the entire cable system will be known as the SAEx Southern Oceans Network, or SAEx SON.
Along with the planned routing it will also have branching units to several Indian Ocean islands and other strategic markets – possibly even a branch to India. Through the SAEx West system, the second phase of the project, the network will connect South Africa to South America, North America and potentially West Africa.
As for SAEx East, SAEx project director and SIML MD Rosalind Thomas has been quoted as saying: “SAEx East is an additional undersea cable route removing dependency on the traditional Red Sea route or the proposed terrestrial routes to Europe.”
She also describes it as a more cost-effective all-wet, deep-ocean path for volume traffic needing a secure, efficient and neutral route to either the Americas or Asia.
Whether the system will indeed establish South Africa as a neutral global hub at the centre of a planned global network as some of its proponents suggest, is, however, some way from being proved. At this stage we’re still awaiting the feasibility study.
