18 Oct 2017

Finland and Mali’s new envoys to Botswana presented their letters of credence to President Lt Gen. Dr Seretse Khama Ian Khama on Monday.

The two are Ambassador of Finland to Botswana, Mr Kari Alanko and Ambassador of Mali to Botswana, Mr Mahamane Cisse.

Speaking in an interview, shortly after presenting his credentials, Mr Alanko said him and President Khama talked more on general issues having to do more with politics, but also the situation in Africa and neighbouring countries as well as the economic development of Botswana.

“But my plan is to try and develop our economic, commercial and institutional cooperation because I think there is a lot we can do that can be helpful to the development of both countries,” said Ambassador Alanko.

Given the fact that Botswana is an upper middle income country, he said the two countries would benefit more from partnerships and business cooperation.

“So, this is what I have in mind. But we did not touch on these issues with the President because I think from my side I need to do more ground work on developing phase. For us, of course, we would like to develop relations with Botswana even further,” he added.

The two nations, Mr Alanko said had enjoyed cordial relations through trade, though he said the trade volumes between Botswana and Finland was small because they were both small countries with a population of 2.2 million and 5.5 million, respectively.

However, he said there was a lot of potential to develop trade and perhaps also invest even further, adding that another sector of cooperation between the two countries was in the mining sector.

Finland Ambassador Alanko said they had a high quality geological survey, which could do meaningful cooperation with Botswana Geological Survey. This cooperation, he said would be beneficial to both countries as they would learn from one another.

“So, this is a concrete example of what I think we could do together with Botswana,” he said.

Sharing his road map, Ambassador of Mali to Botswana, Mr Cisse said he was looking forward to opening new areas of cooperation between Botswana and Mali and to strengthen the areas of cooperation that already existed.

During his term, Ambassador Cisse, who will be based in South Africa, said he would focus on areas such as; culture, arts, sport, political cooperation and mining.

Since inception of the two countries’ relations, he said Mali benefited from Botswana’s political support when it was going through internal conflicts, which were now in the process of being solved.

“We needed that support from all sister countries, like Botswana and we got that support through African Union and United Nations, so that we could be able to sign the peace agreement. And for that we are very thankful to Botswana, because Botswana played a very important role as a member of AU and UN,” he added. BOPA