29 May 2023

Government has placed industrialisation, value addition and beneficiation at the core of its structural transformation agenda, Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr Mmusi Kgafela has said. 

Minister Kgafela told captains of the industry at the 27^th Business Botswana Northern Trade Fair business forum in Francistown May 25, that since independence, industrialisation had always been a key stimulant to economic growth, development, and poverty eradication. 

“This is the same reason it has always been enshrined in our National Development Plans as part of the economic diversification upon the realisation that the country is dependent on minerals as a source of revenue,” he said. 

He, therefore, called on entrepreneurs to consider challenges that hindered industrialisation and considered possible opportunities that could assist industrial growth in the economy. 

He observed that natural resource-based industrialisation had worked well for some countries as they industrialised through the exploitation of their natural resources by adding value. 

He explained further that Botswana had abundant natural resources including minerals and agriculture, which could be beneficiated to produce a variety of products. 

He said Botswana Investment and Trade Centre had also conducted a regional mapping exercise to identify opportunities around the country to stimulate investment in these opportunities. 

“It is on this note that we remain hopeful that as a country we can also manage. 

We are already seeing the fruits of this strategy looking at the number of diamond-cutting and polishing companies establishing in the country,” he said. 

He implored businesses to look at what was abundant around and see how that could be beneficiated or better still what other products could be made from that raw material. 

“This could be as a final product or it could be processed into a product that could be used by the next person as a raw material and in this way being a part of a local, regional or even global value chain,” said the minister. 

He, however, admitted that beneficiation or value addition depended on several factors including cheap and efficient transport, utilities as well as the elimination of some bureaucracies. 

As such, he said government coming up with interventions to ensure that local firms and industries progressed up the technology ladder to avoid being locked indefinitely into low-technology low-wage activities. 

The minister further thanked the private sector for continuously playing a role in driving the country’s economic growth. 

For his part, Business Botswana’s vice president Mr Humprey Nawa implored businesses to consider Francistown as an investment city of choice given its geographical location. 

He said Francistown was a gateway for trade into SADC. 

“Investment opportunities are in, amongst others, transport and logistics hub, manufacturing and agriculture,” he said. 

Also, he said through industrialisation, local businesses had an opportunity to grow and export their products and services into Africa following the ratification of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement, which provides an African market population of over 1.3 billion people. 

Mr Nawa further applauded government for its efforts in driving the diversification agenda, shifting away from a mineral-based economy to an export-based economy, through the capacitation of businesses in the manufacturing sector particularly. Ends