31 Mar 2019

Botswana has been encouraged to attract more foreign direct investment (FDI) and tap knowledge on expanding its digital trade networks.

United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) secretary general, Dr Mukhisa Kituyi, said this during a brief panel discussion with the Minister of Investment, Trade and Industry, Ms Bogolo Kenewendo in Gaborone recently.

Dr Kituyi, who was on a three-day working visit to Botswana at the invitation of President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi, joined Minister Kenewendo to unpack Vision 2036 statement of transforming Botswana from an upper middle-income economy to a high-income economy.

“Globally there has been a decline in terms of FDI investment. Africa as a whole there has been marginal improvements in the past years. 

Africa trade with the rest of the world account for 2.4 per cent of global export and 2.7 per cent of global trade,” said Dr Kituyi.

He pointed to the technological cold war between China and the United States as some of the major factors that guided growth of the African economy because of the two countries strategic partnership with the rest of the continent.

“The production value chains are also looked at as a politically inspired effort.  Globalisation may have generated wealth but it has not been a fair distributor of such wealth and the middle-income economies are vulnerable to such developments,” he said.

Dr Kituyi said there had been a boom in expansion of the digital trade which had grown four times than the normal trade.

He said digital trade was critical and it was important for countries such as Botswana to have enabling regulatory measure to allow for ease of doing digital business.

He appealed for development of necessary skills and the alignment of educational training with current market requirements.

“We must cut back on red tape, create an enabling infrastructure development and trade facilitation where you reduce the risk of being landlocked.  But don’t run the risk of attracting more foreign investors than domestic investors.

Where this had happened the local enterprises registered offshore and came back as foreigners,” he warned.

Minister Kenewendo said encouraging FDI and trade facilitation were the two aspects that Botswana was working on.

“In the areas where we have incentives we normally look domestically.

Key areas for incentives is how we position ourselves to the rest of the world and tap into opportunities that come along the way. For FDI attraction we are looking at engaging more partners going forward,” she said.

She also shared with the audience Botswana’s potential new areas of partnerships with the rest of the world and how this development partner could help in the envisaged transformation agenda.

The overarching aim of UNCTAD was to strengthen trade, investment and development opportunities in developing countries and assist them in their efforts to integrate into the world economy. Ends