20 Jun 2019

The Minister of Investment, Trade and Industry, Ms Bogolo Kenewendo says Botswana is happy with the prospects of its first catch at the US-Africa business summit in Mozambique.

Ms Kenewendo, who was part of Botswana delegation at the summit, said in an interview on June 19 that the conversation they had with Grupo San Donato, an international medical cooperation, sparked interest among the two parties.

Should all go well, Ms Kenewendo said, the group would not only deliver on the hospital services side.

It had other additional services that could help absorb some of the students in the area and also introduce technology and innovation in the health space.

“We are quite excited and looking forward to see this collaboration grow and prosper,” she said.

On the US-Africa business summit, Ms Kenewendo said she was seeing a lot of commitment coming from Corporate Council on Africa and the US government whom she said had shown interest to partner with the African continent beyond aid.

“We have been saying as a country that our partnership should be focusing on trade and investment. That is how you grow and reduce dependency on the western world thereby becoming more of partners in growth and development,” she said.

The launch of trade initiatives such as Power Africa and Progress Africa, which according to Ms Kenewendo were travel and investment facilitation tools for companies that wanted to set up in Africa, was a welcome development.

The two initiatives, she stated, were meant to facilitate movements of US companies and help deal with some of the challenges highlighted by the companies in Africa such as smaller capital market and other government related issues.

The three-day summit facilitated and elevated business to business and business to government engagement.

It attracted more than 1 000 US and African private sector executives, international investors, senior government officials and multilateral stakeholders. ENDs