29 Jan 2020

 Ambassador of the European Union (EU) to Botswana Mr Jan Sadek says the EU will aim at repositioning itself to strengthen its trade and investment agenda with Africa this year.

He said this on the back-drop of  a two-day visit by European External Action Service Policy Officer for Botswana, Mr Ondrej Simek who was in the country and met a number of senior government and private sector officials to discuss Botswana’s relations with the EU as well as  other issues of mutual interest.

Ambassador Sadek noted that this year was a busy one for market development partnerships worldwide, noting the uncertain nature of markets globally and the drop in diamond sales in Botswana in particular.

Mr sadek said the EU being the second biggest trade investment partner for Botswana was making strides in its bid to explore and build more areas for investment partnerships with the country in order to take advantage of new opportunities.

He said Africa and the European Union needed to do more to strengthen their trade relations because their trade and investment partnerships were mutually beneficial for both continents urging that Botswana’s trajectory towards high income status depended on taking advantage of external value chains.

The Ambassador further noted that Botswana still had high export potential in other items urging that Botswana’s 97 per cent diamond items export quota dependence was not conducive to the development of the country into a high income status country.

He further noted that the EU delegation had through different stakeholders and other development partners including the private sector come up with an export vision aimed at doubling non-diamond export items for Botswana in two years.

He said the export vision would capacitate diversification of product market into the EU for Batswana entrepreneurs including the rolling out of a 60 million Euros export implementation program to provide comprehensive support for the private sector to compete abroad.

ENDS