BITC surpasses FDI attraction target
Pauline Dikuelo | Friday December 18, 2015 13:26
According to the investment agency’s 2014/15 annual report, foreign direct investment (FDI) companies raised P1.5 billion with business expansions contributing P1.4 billion and domestic investment valued at P238.4 million during the financial year.
Total capital investment was realised in several sectors including manufacturing, business and financial services, retail, automotive component manufacturing, agriculture, mining, engineering and construction.
According to BITC chief executive officer, Letsebe Sejoe they have exceeded targets with respect to measures of job creation, business expansions and foreign direct investment attaining over 100 percent achievement.
Sejoe said the Financial and Business Services sector represented the largest contribution to their performance delivering P1.8 billion which is more than 50 percent of the capital investment realised which is a significant growth of 68 percent compared to the 2013/2014 total capital investment of P1.9 billion.
He said they have created over 3,000 jobs during the period under review surpassing the annual target of 2,400 with a majority of jobs created through business expansions that contributed 73 percent to the jobs figure.
Companies that expanded significantly during the period included an automotive harness manufacturing plant, which created about 900 jobs.
“BITC initiated negotiations with 46 companies which have expressed an intention to establish a presence in Botswana. Those companies are from countries such as South Africa, India, Canada, United Kingdom, Zimbabwe and China,”
Government’s subvention allocated to BITC also grew by P23.9 million to P111.7 million from P87.8 million recorded in the prior year.
The growth has been attributed to the continued expansion of operational activities including the launch of a major marketing campaign on CNBC, an international television station.
“The increase in the government grant is substantially less than the required level to sustain BITC’s increased operational activities. However, the funding shortfall continues to be a challenge for the organisation,” said BITC’s chief operations officer, Meshack Tshekedi.
Tshekedi said during the year under review, they identified a number of key activities where there was potential to collaborate with other organisations with similar and complementary mandates. Four projects were financed through these arrangements resulting in cost savings of P4 million. Moving forward, BITC plans to execute its recently completed investment strategy in the next financial year, 2015/2016 that will be fully supported by clear sector value propositions. With the implementation of this strategy, BITC is confident of securing increased values in FDI in the coming financial year.
The organisation also plans to closely look at the beneficiation in the various sectors to unearth potential growth and development. Another key focus will be for the ICT-enabled business services to establish a niche in the global value chain.
BITC also have plans to lobby for the introduction of a business facilitation law that would ensure a smooth acquisition of government authorisations in line with the successful and progressive countries that they compete in. “BITC has plans to increase the international coverage further by launching an international Botswana campaign on BBC next financial year,”it said.
BITC initiated a strategic national project to develop a Botswana Trade portal that will open Botswana’s trade opportunities to the world. The portal will be a web-based state-of-the-art system designed to grow imports and exports by providing business community both locally and globally with comprehensive timely and up-to date critical information relating to trade in Botswana.
The portal will consolidate and store all documents pertinent to trade in the country specifically, application forms, licences, permits, trading rules and requirements.