03 Dec 2015

The Ambassador of Botswana to China, Mr Sasara George says Botswana can penetrate the Chinese market despite the big imbalance in exports and imports between the two countries.

Botswana imports huge volumes of commodities from China every year including textiles, clothes and appliances. Further, there are a number of Chinese companies doing business in Botswana especially in the construction sector.

In contrast, major exports to China have been limited to diamonds since diplomatic relations between the two countries were established in 1975.

In an interview recently, Mr George hinted that the size of the two economies made it difficult for Botswana products to penetrate the Chinese market. However, he said the country has a big opportunity of selling its beef to China after he worked hard to market it to the giant Asian country.

Mr George has been Botswana’s envoy to China since 2011.

“We have looked at where Botswana has the best opportunities, what we are good at. We identified the beef industry and asked the government here to allow Botswana to export beef to China and a country agreement was put in place,” Mr George said.

He said conditions of the agreement were for Botswana to satisfy China that its cattle were free of Foot and Mouth disease, and that the country does not have issues with cattle lung and mad cow diseases.
He said a delegation from the regulatory authority was sent to look at those conditions.

“They had some impressions about our standards, which our veterinarians are yet to answer. That is the only little thing which is remaining,” Mr George said, explaining that if those issues were to be sorted out Botswana could soon commence exporting beef to China.

Ambassador George further said exporting donkey meat to China was another opportunity which Botswana could tap into. He said donkey meat was a delicacy to Chinese people and is actually more expensive compared to beef.

“Donkey meat has a big market here. Of course we have the capacity to sell it to China,” he stated.

The ambassador further said Botswana must have flexible rules aimed at attracting more foreign direct investment from China. He said the Chinese government did the same thing with its special economic zones, when it was setting China up as a global exporter of goods.

He said Botswana should look at commodities it is importing from China and encourage some Chinese companies to produce those commodities in Botswana. Ends