Batswana eye chinese trade prospects

BABOKI KAYAWE
Staff Writer | Monday April 4, 2011 00:00

 

The yawning trade imbalance is being attended to by the Botswana Export Development and Investment Authority (BEDIA) and other agencies while simultaneously fostering closer ties between the two countries.

BEDIA hopes Batswana will tap into the numerous opportunities offered by the Oriental giant, including joint ventures and partnerships. To this end, BEDIA hosted a Chinese business delegation led by the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) last Thursday.

The delegation was also expected to promote foreign direct investment in the areas of agriculture, agribusiness, real estate development, tourism, logistics (rail and road transport), electric power generation and transmission, power plant construction, water supply, mining, infrastructural development, city planning, engineering design and manufacturing.At the BEDIA-CCPIT seminar, the Authority's CEO, Jacob Nkate, said the Chinese visit to Botswana would provide a platform to explore possibilities of partnerships.

Nkate urged the Botswana business community to seize investment opportunities at their disposal for economic growth and development. 'We live in a competitive world and we need to take advantage of the abundance of our natural resources to manufacture our own products,' he said.

A business alliance between Botswana and CCPIT would significantly contribute to the achievement of this goal, he added. Nkate urged the Chinese delegation to make use of the various sectoral hubs that the government has set up in order to diversify the economy from minerals. 

CCPIT Secretary General, Xu Hubin, commended the seminar for promoting cooperation in varied sectors. He applauded the Botswana government's economic diversification drive away from the mineral sector, adding that the Chinese delegation had expertise to help in those efforts.

Xu said CCPIT was prepared to work with BEDIA in order to strengthen business relations between the two nations and deepen trade ties which dated as far back as 1975.  The seminar also featured presentations from the Transport and Innovation hubs, which, together with Diamond Hub, Health Hub, Agriculture Hub and the Education Hub, were introduced in 2010 to underpin the Botswana Excellence Strategy and forge interaction with the private sector.