Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who is also head of the African Union (AU), is billed to visit Botswana in the near future. President Mokgweetsi Masisi revealed this at a press conference on Saturday shortly after he landed from Switzerland.
Kagame has been adjudged the ‘2018 African of the Year’ at the eighth All Africa Business Leaders Awards (AABLA).
Masisi, together with First Lady Neo Masisi and Minister of Investment, Trade and Industry Bogolo Kenewendo, and their entourage, participated at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland where Masisi had an opportunity to interact with Kagame on the sidelines.
Masisi said Kagame indicated a couple of times his desire to visit Botswana. “I met Kagame, who for the fourth time since I became President told me directly and to my wife that he would love to visit Botswana. So I wish to tell you that the visit is imminent,” he said.
Kagame has been praised globally for leading his country to prosperity.
World leaders are forever eager to engage with Kagame to pull a leaf from his sagacious book on how Rwanda managed to make it this far.
Masisi said he also met with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and also the Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who also expressed desire to visit Botswana. “We met a whole range of civil society and business leaders from the biggest corporations, the youngest start-ups and the most interesting was owned by a 33-year-old multi-millionaire from Holland. I assigned the Ambassador to engage him further to lure him here for the skills development component that are prerequisite to the jobs that we badly want,” he said. Masisi said in achieving a knowledge-based economy, it is important that Botswana partners and engages with those already operating in that space like Switzerland.
He said he was looking forward to Botswana attending the forum again next year with a bigger team including players in the private sector and the private media.
He urged business people to also do something to complement government in making sure that they become part of the next meeting.
For her part, Kenewendo said she had a trilateral meeting with the United Kingdom and South African counterparts with regard to Brexit. “In our case we do not want to have any trade disruption. We had started negotiating a trade agreement with the UK. We met a few challenges.
“This time around when we met, we made some concessions. Hopefully we will see Mozambique and the UK reaching a trade agreement by the end of February.
We are trying to protect our interests as much as possible to see to it that we continue exporting beef to the UK,” she said.
Kenewendo said they are building relationships and continue selling Botswana as a suitable host for investors.
