14 Sep 2023

President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi has laid out Botswana’s plans for attracting greater investment and skills transfer to the Bahamian business investors.

Speaking during official talks with The Bahamas Prime Minister, Mr Phillip Davis on Wednesday Dr Masisi invited Bahamas citizens who had earned a reputation of being masterclass business persons to travel to Botswana and invest.

“Come and invest in Botswana so we exchange talents and skills, either invest on your own or co-invest because we have a free market economy and opportunities for that,” he said.

He said Botswana and The Bahamas had to exchange notes and focus on a win-win situation on areas of mutual interest and priority such as health, agriculture, and tourism.

Dr Masisi expressed a wish for both governments to form a coalition of like-minded heads of government who would transform the economies.

Appreciating the beauty of The Bahamas, which he said contributed significantly to nation being celebrated and appreciated, Dr Masisi said  ‘we have been blown away by your tourism, literally, the surface area that you occupy and intensity of quality in it and the excellence of it's management and uniqueness of its design. We really need to learn a lot from you’.

Dr Masisi said COVID-19 brought unparallaled challenges to Botswana’s economy. He said government collaborated with willing partners, revitalised and repositioned the outlook of the economy. 

He said government discovered, invented and substituted a lot of things during COVID-19 that gave a lot of hope.

The President said a lot was made to diversify from mineral based economy which contributed 70 per cent of the GDP.

“We took a bold unprecedented step of taking on a major multinational company that had been mining with us in terms that I think were unacceptable. We changed that completely for the first time in our history we will be participating in a huge space,” he said.

President Masisi said Botswana was enthused to re-launch or provide renewed impetus to the two nations’ bilateral relationships which started in 2006.

He invited  both Governor General Ms Cynthia Alexandria  Pratt and Mr Davis to visit Botswana

“Visits are extremely important because you get contextualised and you appreciate and realise positions and circumstances that countries you visit take and hold,” said Dr Masisi.

For his part, Prime Minister Davis said The Bahamas admired Botswana's remarkable achievements, both on the socio-economic front and in upholding democratic values and institutions.

“I am certain that our dialogues and engagements will lead to beneficial institutional and cultural partnerships that transcend our geographic divide and positively impact the broader regions we each represent. As islanders, we in The Bahamas are always eager to understand and learn from the experiences of nations from different terrains,” he said.

Mr Davis said the story of Botswana with its rich cultural heritage, conservation efforts and rapid development trajectory was both enlightening and inspiring.

He said there was great potential in collaborating in areas the two nations had identified. Ends