24 Aug 2022

Botswana Investment and Trade Centre (BITC) is  upbeat on the backdrop of a very favourable report card (the Apex measurement performance report of 2021/22).

Briefing members of the media on the BITC Apex measurement performance of 2021/22 in Gaborone on Tuesday, the chief executive officer, Mr Keletsositse Olebile revealed that BITC surpassed almost all its targets.

 Mr Olebile said they had set an export target at P3.60 billion, which they exceeded to hit the P3.84 billion mark.

He said they had also set a target at P1.30 billion on the foreign direct investment, but reached an actual of P2.37 billion, surpassing the target by P1.07 billion, while the actual for the domestic investment and expansion was P2.05 billion, as opposed to the P1.50 billion target.

On job creation, he said they had targeted 2000 job opportunities and ended up with 3000 jobs to make a total of 5000 jobs during the reporting period.

 He said their 10-year Apex measure performance from 2012 -2022 saw a total of 29 126 jobs created as compared to their target of 27 450 jobs.

 Mr Olebile said the export earnings for the last 10 years saw the actual recording P23.25 billion as opposed to a target of P24.09 billion.

He cited unforeseen circumstances such as the COVID-19 pandemic, which brought everything to a standstill.

 He said on the domestic investment and expansion they recorded an actual of P13.14 billion as opposed to a target of P13.72 billion while the foreign direct investment recorded a whopping P15.24 billion surpassing the P13.09 billion target.

Mr Olebile said the figures gave them an overall corporate performance of 89.7 per cent surpassing their set target of 80 per cent of excellence for the past 10 years.

He said in 2013/14, their performance stood at 84 per cent, 2014/15 it was 83 per cent, 2015/16 garnered 90 per cent, while in 2016/17 they went down to 73.9 per cent, but picked up in 2017/18 rose to 80.8 per cent and 94 per cent in 2018/19, while in 2019/20 they went a little bit down to 88.1 per cent and 2020/21 recorded 86.6 per cent.

 Mr Olebile said their achievements over the 10 years include, but  not limited to the establishment of the Botswana One Stop Service Centre (BSSC) in 2017, branding of two Air Botswana Aircrafts as part of country branding, establishing the Botswana Trade Portal in 2015 and launch the Export Training module with University of Botswana in 2017.

 He said they achieved all these despite some challenges that they had to go through such as the declining government budget subventions, uncertain operating environment due to geopolitical pressures, such as China/US trade wars, BREXIT and Russia/Ukraine war among others.

 Mr Olebile said other challenges included the protectionism by advanced economies by imposing high tariffs on imported goods such as the US on steel and steel products, fierce global competition for FDI and Trade and the deterioration of market conditions due to effects of the COVID-19.  ENDS