07 Mar 2016

Employment created by the Ministry of Trade and Industry from the beginning of this financial year stood at 4 375 jobs as at December 31, 2015.

This revelation was made by Assistant Minister of Trade and Industry, Advocate Sadique Kebonang when presenting the ministry’s budget proposals for 2016/17 under the development and recurrent expenditures.

Advocate Kebonang explained that the main contributors were businesses in mining, retailing distribution, manufacturing, property, services, agri-business and information and communication technology sectors.

He told Parliament that the implementation of the Industrial Development Policy 2014 was still at the infancy stage and that a series of consultative forums have been held with government institutions, the private sector and other stakeholders with regard to the action plan.

He said there were strategies and programmes in place such as the Special Economic Zones, Economic Diversification Drive and Citizen Economic Empowerment that support industrialisation.

Advocate Kebonang told Parliament that the National Entrepreneurship Policy and Strategy has been concluded and that the draft policy was expected to be presented to Parliament during the July session. He noted that the Citizen Entrepreneurial Development Agency (CEDA) has financed 5 039 projects valued at P3.5 billion since its inception in 2001.

He said the services sector got the largest share of funding with P173 million for 199 projects. 

He said other funded businesses were expected to create employment opportunities for over 2 000 people when operational.

He said investment generated through the Botswana Investment and Trade Centre (BITC) during the 2015/16 financial year amounted to P2.970 billion, constituted by P1.356 billion in foreign direct investment,  P1.244 billion in domestic investment and P369.6 million in expansion of existing investments.

Advocate Kebonang requested Parliament to approve over P900 million under the recurrent budget and over P70 million under the development budget for his ministry.

The development budget is set to cater for the ministry’s computerisation, consultancies, leather industry park and special economic zones.

The recurrent budget will cover the ministry’s departments and parastatal organisations namely BITC, BOBS, CEDA, SPEDU and LEA amongst others. Ends