03 Jun 2013

Botswana Confederation of Commerce Industry and Manpower (BOCCIM), will next May celebrate its 20th anniversary during the annual northern trade fair.

BOCCIM president, Mr Alex Monchusi announced this at the just ended BOCCIM fair in Francistown. Mr Monchusi said the show had grown from only local exhibitors to attracting both national and international exhibitors, hence the need to celebrate the success.

He said this year's show attracted more than 180 exhibitors something, which he described as a considerable increase from the last year’s show, which had  150 exhibitors. Mr Monchusi said his desire was to see the trade fair being a platform in which Batswana would showcase their business opportunities and products.

“As the president of the voice of the business community, I encourage you to network and create business linkages that will ensure more communication among our business community in the northern region as well as the rest of the country,” he said. He added that they took pride in the BOCCIM northern trade fair because it was a testimony of their commitment to the development of businesses in Botswana.

Mr Monchusi added that the fair gave investors the opportunity to not only showcase but to also consider Francistown as an ideal investment destination, particularly in the sense that it was the getaway to the northern African countries.

He pointed out that success in ensuring citizen participation in the economy could only bare fruits if stakeholders worked together and supported each other so as to take lead in the country’s economy.

He said BOCCIM  encouraged manufacturers, especially the small to medium companies to exhibit their products as a launch pad to reach out to the buying public. With regards to the planned developments at the show grounds, Mr Monchusi said they were in the process of finalising the purchase of 26 hectors.  

Other future developments  included construction of the convention centre. He also stated that BOCCIM was working on capacitating the Francistown office by decentralising some of the services  particularly the publicity of the show. Ends