14 Oct 2020

Botswana Trade and Investment Centre (BITC) chief executive officer, Mr Keletsositse Olebile, says the organisation intends to put more emphasis in domestic investment.

Speaking during a performance update meeting in Gaborone on October 13, Mr Olebile said the COVID-19 pandemic had strengthened a need to stimulate domestic trade and investment, which they were currently doing through the #PushaBW campaign.

He noted that unlike foreign direct investment, which in most cases took about five years to start making gains, domestic investment had great potential.

He said they helped generate about 4 000 job opportunities   in the year 2019/20 alone.

He further noted that the majority of jobs had been realised from the service and agriculture sectors that included agro-processing followed by the manufacturing sector

According to Mr Olebile, the investment centre would, through enhanced strategic approaches, target  and facilitate the uptake of local products by retailers including capacity building and the promotion of products.

Moreover, Mr Olebile said they had been working with stakeholders and they recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Business Botswana that would go a long way in ensuring a conducive business environment.

He further said they were working with government to ensure that citizen owned enterprises received uptake of their products into the domestic markets.

He clarified that BITC had and would continue to advocate for import substitution initiatives in favor of citizen owned enterprises especially when a manufacturer had reached capacity to supply the country.

“We’re cautious of the import bill and through careful assessment where we find that a product can be locally sourced we always engage government on procuring that product locally,” he said.

Mr Olebile also said there were headwinds ahead for the country as markets were predicted to recover from COVID 19 by 2021 noting that BITC had a solid strategy in place to take advantage of any opportunities. ENDS