07 Aug 2019

Botswana still has a long way to go in realising its dream to transform into a high income economy.

Ministry of International Affairs and Cooperation permanent secretary, Mr Gaeimelwe Goitsemang told  a Tokyo International Conference of Africa Development (TICAD) stakeholder seminar yesterday, that the country still lagged behind in many areas of development despite its huge endowment in natural resources including minerals.

Mr Goitsemang observed that Botswana still had much to do in terms of infrastructure development as well as in developing skills necessary to inspire economic growth.

He however noted that there was hope for the country to realise its dream because it had willing partners such as Japan who were committed to helping Botswana.

He said if exploited fully, programmes such as TICAD, through which Japan was committed to contributing to Africa’ sustainable development, could help the country turn a corner in its terms of economic development.

Apart from the assistance through the TICAD process, Mr Goitsemang added that Botswana’s relationship with Japan, dating back to 1966, had on its own been beneficial as it had opened up possibilities for learning and benefitting from one of the leading nations in technology and innovation.

Despite the benefits reaped so far, he noted nonetheless that there was quite limited Japanese commercial and economic presence in Botswana.

Japanese ambassador to Botswana, Mr Kozo Takeda said TICAD had, since inception, been a key platform through which the two countries had opportunity to deepen their discussions on how to improve Botswana’s development process strategy.

Mr Takeda was optimistic that TICAD would continue to further strengthen the two countries’ ties and help Botswana to realise balanced and stable economic growth and transformation for the benefit of all its citizens.

Regarding the two countries’ general bilateral relations, the ambassador noted that on the economic front, his country had focused on Botswana’s economic transformation with emphasis on infrastructure development, human resource development as well as technological transfer.

He indicated that up to March last year, the total development assistance from the Japanese government to Botswana stood at approximately P3.4 billion. The TICAD seminar was convened in preparation for the TICAD summit scheduled for Yokohama, Japan from August 28-30. ENDS