21 Jul 2022

The US Africa Business Summit has emerged as an opportunity for Botswana to present priority sectors to investors with a view to revitalising its economy.

The sectors include agribusiness, energy, smart mining, health, infrastructure and trade facilitation with a bias toward women and youth entrepreneurs.

During yesterday’s Doing Business in Botswana forum organised by Botswana Investment and Trade Centre (BITC), President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi said the platform was also an opportunity to solidify commercial ties with the US.

He called on investors to bring innovative ideas to grow the target sectors and assured them of the political will and sound environment for doing business. All these were to ensure  Botswana achieved its ambition of moving  from a resource-based economy to a knowledge-based one.

President Masisi expressed gratitude that the summit had taken place in spite of the unprecedented health and economic challenges brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war.

He therefore thanked the US’ Corporate Council on Africa for availing Botswana the opportunity to engage first-hand with its US public and private sector counterparts.

“This will assist us, African countries, to solicit innovative resources and tools to aid our businesses into finding their footing and springing back to normalcy,” he said.

President Masisi informed his audience that Botswana’s economic, good governance and  democratic achievements could all be rolled back by  COVID-19.

“Like everyone else, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a dramatic impact on our economic growth,” he said, adding that this was despite a range of targeted measures to make up for lost incomes, limited social protection and rising food and other commodity prices owing to disruptions in the global supply chains.

The President said debilitating impact of COVID-19 had resulted in the unemployment rate increasing to 26 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2021, up from 22.2 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2019, just before the outbreak.

However, Botswana was able to maintain a positive economic outlook with both Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s awarding the country  an “A” sovereign credit rating.

Botswana was the only country in mainland sub-Saharan Africa to get such a rating, he said, and  attributed that to the country’s track record of prudent and frugal public finances management and the fact that its sovereign debt remained very low by regional and international standards.

“This confirms that Botswana still has a stable economic outlook despite the pandemic,” he said.

Another speaker, BITC chief cxecutive officer, Mr Keletsositse Olebile said more effort would be put into ensuring that the business space with American companies was broadened.

He cited the Africa Growth Opportunity Act saying its  potential was considerably unexplored.

Mr Olebile said all the target areas awaited exploration.

He assured investors that systems were in place to facilitate them.

Adding his voice to the discussion, Debswana managing director, Mr Andrew  Motsumi  told investors that a niche existed in smart mining.

“I request partnerships within innovation, research and development to move within the context of low environment impact mining,” he said.

Mr Motsumi said Botswana was alive to the needs of future mining which included establishing requirements critical to market needs such as small equipment and 100 per cent renewable energy undertakings.

For his part, Botswana Institute for Technology Research and Innovation (BITRI) chief executive officer, Prof Shedden Masupe implored investors to exploit the mineral beneficiation space under rare earth elements.

BITRI would facilitate them through research and development,  he said. 

The summit was held under the theme, Building Forward Together. Ends