Botswana has unmatched investment opportunities � Seretse
Pauline Dikuelo | Thursday November 20, 2014 10:54
He revealed this during the ninth GEB, which is held under the theme ‘Enhancing the business landscape through foreign direct investment and exports.’
“This theme emphasises on providing an unmatched opportunity for the local business community to meet and develop strategic business partnerships with the international exhibitors from around the world. “As a market-led economy, Botswana `s objective is to provide a conducive investment climate which will nurture economic growth through maintenance of a stable macro-economic environment coupled with requisite institutional support,” he said.
He also highlighted that the government continues to work with the business community to improve the country`s business environment by providing the necessary policy framework and business reforms to enhance investor confidence. Furthermore, Seretse emphasised that being a land-locked country, market access plays a very important role in Botswana’s investment promotion and attraction strategy, given the size of the local market. “Botswana has a narrow manufacturing base as 80 percent of what the country consumes is imported, resulting in a huge import bill,” he said.
He however noted that local production of goods and services is not targeting only the domestic market, but also the regional and international markets, which the Southern African Customs Union SACU accords the opportunity for exporting the manufactured goods duty free and quota free to member states providing access to a market of more than 50 million consumers.
“In this year’s Expo, we expect a platform for youth to enhance meaningful participation through acclaimed Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) which is the world’s largest celebration of innovators and job creators who launch start-ups that bring ideas to life as well as drive economic growth and expand human welfare.” He added
On his part the Botswana Investment Trade Centre (BITC) Board Chairman Victor Sennye noted that the number of exhibitors from last year’s 138 exhibitors to this year’s 160 is a sign that GEB remains relevant to the national economic development agenda and the aspirations of business.
The GEB is hoped to help maximise the participants’ business exposure in their specific markets and thus afford them the opportunity to build new business relationships.
It (the GEB) will also help generate significant new leads with difficult to reach business decision makers as well as introduce new products to the market place and network with consumer product vendors.
The two day Investment and Trade conference, which is parallel to this GEB will cover various topics from the Public Private Partnership (PPP), Data Centres, Mineral resource technologies and beneficiation, country competitiveness, Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA)`s to Women in Business in Africa.
GEB, which is on its ninth year is a major trade and investment platform offering an exciting opportunity to do business in one of Africa’s most stable and rated amongst the fastest growing economies.