China Mall opens in Midrand

China Mall’s grand opening on 23 April was a family affair filled with music, cotton candy and topped with a jumping castle.

And while the children danced to the music, the adults acquainted themselves with the new shops and participated in competitions that saw them awarded with vouchers and prizes.

The grand draw winner, Nikki Potgieter said she did not expect to win at all. “I just came to support MixFM,” said Potgieter.

“This is a very cool mall.”

Innocent Makoni from the radio station, said he liked the fact that the mall brought healthy business competition into the area. “It’s awesome, very spacious and it is great for competition,” he said.

“If you want Christmas clothes for your kids, this is the place to get them,” chimed in his lively colleague, Fefe Madileng.

The opening did not just offer food and low prices, though. Odney Kgatuke said he was grateful that he was able to secure a job as a shopkeeper in one of the stores in the mall as it is closer to his home. “I live in Ivory Park Ext 2 and I worked in Pretoria previously,” Kgatuke said.

His new job means he saves on travelling costs and time. When asked about how he came to know about vacancies, Kgatuke said that word of mouth is how most people heard about them. “My friend woke me up early one morning and said we need to go to Midrand, there’s a new mall opening. I came with my CV.”

Mark Kazaan, developer of the mall, also commented on the job creation. He said it had a great impact on the community at large. “Development has a knock-on effect, the contractors benefit which means the builders benefit and so on,” said Kazaan.

“We estimate that 1 000 jobs were created during the construction phase and 200 permanent jobs were created after construction.”