24 Nov 2015

Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr Vincent Seretse, says Botswana supports the implementation of the recently adopted Industrialisation Strategy Roadmap.

In an interview on the sidelines of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) Committee of the Ministers of Trade (CMT) meeting, Mr Seretse said it was important for Botswana to rally behind the strategy, which would help in broadening the country’s industrial base.

He said such efforts would help in contributing to the country’s long term goal of creating employment.

“We are now basically here to review the progress made in actualising the programme. All I can say is that we are moving forward. We strongly believe there is a growing need to accelerate the industrialisation programme. As SADC we dream of growing as a region,” he said.

Mr Seretse highlighted that government was providing an enabling environment for businesses to thrive. 

He said Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) was important for Africa and for SADC.

“In Africa we have commodity driven economies and what we are focusing on as member states to our regional blocs is to get investors to promote these products,” he said.

When opening the meeting, Minister Seretse said delegates were going to make decisions on several key issues including reflecting on implementation of the SADC Protocol on Trade and get updated on the monitoring, reporting and evaluation system.

Thus, he pleaded with his colleagues to create an enabling environment for the private sector to prosper and attract investments provided for by the revised five-year Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP). Ends