13 Sep 2018

Government and the private sector need to take advantage of the youth dividend if they want to develop innovative enterprises.

The Minister of Investment, Trade and Industry, Ms Bogolo Kenewendo said this at the just ended 15^th National Business Conference.

She explained that one of the essentials in private sector development and business was the value of the youth and their innovative thinking relative to traditional experience.

In order for Botswana to make the leap to a higher income status, Minister Kenewendo said young people needed to be given prominent roles to drive innovation as they were users of the latest and greatest technologies which were in line with today’s consumer Internet market. Young people, she underscored, were open to new ways of doing things and could transform both government and the private sector for a successful transition to a knowledge based economy. She noted that the country had talented young people who had demonstrated creativity in their use of technology.

 The minister also informed delegates that government had no business in running businesses, adding that all that her ministry wanted to do was to create a conducive environment for the private sector to thrive.

 Embracing technology, Minister Kenewendo highlighted, would lead companies to come up with products that offered the country a competitive edge in the market.

“Disruption will negatively affect those companies that fail to embrace innovation and technology. When any industry gets disrupted, companies should be able to survive,” she asserted.

 Some of the business disruptions, she noted, came within an enterprise while some came from competitors.

 Her ministry, she added, was focused on developing SMMEs, noting that while bringing big companies was good, the fact that they were based externally meant that they could leave if something negative happened to the economy.

She said it was government’s objective to build local productive capacities and build enterprises which could remain in the country forever.

 On other issues, she noted that while big local companies always requested government support, they failed to create linkages with associated SMMEs locally.

 Minister Kenewendo explained that they were working on an export development programme. She also informed delegates that the ministry took a business delegation to China. The business leaders, she noted, had one on one meetings with their counterparts in China .

Furthermore, she explained that there was an upcoming AGOA forum in the USA which she urged the private sector to register and take advantage of.

The ministry, she said, was in the process of reviewing the Botswana Export Credit Insurance (BECI).

On other issues, she said household debt in the country was high. She said she hoped to see lending to businesses increase. Minister Kenewendo explained that as a way of fairly distributing economic benefits, her ministry wanted to see the distribution of enterprises and jobs to other parts of the country as compared to the current scenario where economic activity was concentrated in the eastern corridor. ENDS