24 Oct 2017

Botswana and Tunisia are to explore the economic cooperation framework agreement, which will enable the two countries to work together.

This emerged at a courtesy call by the Tunisia Ambassador to Botswana Ms Narjes Dridi on the Minister of Investment, Trade and Industry, Mr Vincent Seretse in Gaborone on Tuesday.

The two agreed that Botswana and Tunisia barely know about each other, hence the need for a bilateral framework to develop specific economic agreements.

Mr Seretse informed the ambassador that he has, on several occasions, met his Tunisian counterpart with regards to issues pertaining to continental free trade area, which he said would facilitate trade between member states.

“Your presence here opens a door for us as a country to create opportunities for our people,” he said.

He said currently the ministry was working on a programme of special economic zones for the locals to produce goods that could be exported to regional and international markets. 

Mr Seretse said he was aware that Tunisia had interesting business incentives, which Botswana could learn from.

The two agreed on developing exchange programmes whereby Tunisians and Batswana business community might interact on skills sharing. 

Ms Dridi said arrangements should be made for leading national investment institutions of the two countries to meet and share knowledge on how they could focus on accelerated economic growth and diversification, employment creation and export development.

She also said she was interested in sourcing accurate businesses data, which she could forward to her country for the business community to liaise with each other and see how they might complement each other.

Meanwhile, Minister Seretse informed Ms Dridi that the Botswana Investment and Trade Centre was established with a view to provide a platform to ensure that local businesses are given intensive support to enhance their export competitiveness establish a significant foothold in regional and international markets. ENDS