26 Apr 2022

Young people have been encouraged to be innovative to ensure their products reached international markets.

“It is for this reason that the ministry is working around the clock to ensure that Batswana businesses benefit from the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement which promises a lucrative market made up of more than one billion people accessing our products and services,” Mr Mmusi Kgafela said yesterday. 

Speaking on the occasion of World Intellectual Property Day commemoration in Francistown, the trade and industry minister said AfCFTA’s objective was to boost intra-African trade and economic growth continentally as well as to promote industrialisation and competitiveness. 

 Mr Kgafela said as the country actively looked for ways to tap into the continental market, protection of intellectual property in order to safeguard local brands and inventions, was critical. 

  Urging young people to fully exploit their creativeness, he noted that government had put in place several initiatives to improve the creative industry’s access to markets and international competitiveness. 

Minister Kgafela said the ministry had approved regulations to allow Copyright Society of Botswana (COSBOTS) to collect reprographic tariffs for literary and artistic works.

In addition, COSBOTS had recently negotiated an 80 per cent airplay agreement for local music and production on state-owned media which would significantly increase royalties to local creatives,  he said. 

The minister also pointed  out that Citizen Entrepreneurial Development Agency, through its new guidelines, now allowed members of the creative industry to use  property as security for obtaining business finance.

US Embassy economic and commercial officer Mr Brian Smyser encouraged young people to keep innovating and creating because the future depended on their collective and individual ingenuity to identify problems and experiment with solutions.

 He said entrepreneur’s creativity would drive ideas of tomorrow and change the way  businesses functioned and how society interacted. 

Mr Smyser advised the creatives to think about how Botswana could score economic growth and gains as an early mover on clean energy and water resilience technologies as well as on other key opportunities presented to the country.

He stated that goods and services created by entrepreneurs relied on strong infrastructure for intellectual property protection and enforcement.

By protecting and enforcing their valuable intellectual property, Mr Smyser said, they all contributed to increasing economic opportunities in Botswana and incentivizing an exciting future of innovations. 

“With all these efforts in partnership with you, our cooperative work to mobilise young people in Botswana, United States and around the world to participate in the global economy will pay dividends,” he said. Ends