26 Feb 2024

Great potential for exportation of cosmetics and agriculture products from Botswana to the United States of America market exists under the African Growth Opportunities Act (AGOA).

Speaking in an interview, United States of America Ambassador Howard Van Vranken said the United States remained Botswana’s largest single market where 53 per cent of Botswana’s primary exports of diamonds ended up.

He said AGOA was designed to provide sub-Saharan African countries with duty-free access to the US market but Batswana had not been able to take more advantage of the opportunity even though the potential was enormous.

Mr Van Vranken said beneficiated diamond jewellery from Botswana companies was not enough and  that he yearned to witness more Batswana taking advantage of AGOA.

“There is so much potential for cosmetics and agriculture. So far very small amounts have been going into the United States market. If it is cosmetics, it is very-very small quantities of Morula products exported to US and with agriculture we are hoping for that to change a bit because there is Selebi Phikwe citrus project which will hopefully pass the test to export under AGOA,” he said.

Ambassador Van Vranken said they were currently working on the phytosanitary standards. 

“That review is ongoing and we shall know later this year if it shall be successful,” he said, adding that the United States had strict scientific approach to exporting into the country.

He said upon realising the sluggish uptake of AGOA by Batswana companies, a revision of the country’s AGOA strategy was done recently, which now placed focus on supporting the exports of meat and meat products, natural or indigenous products, handicrafts, jewellery as well as semi-precious stones duty free.

“As for meat export there are protocols to be followed to be certified to export to the US market,” he said.

He said the US was alive to the fact that Botswana was currently unable to produce enough meat to meet the quota allocated to her in other markets and they were closely monitoring to see how the country increased its stock.

“We know that it takes a process to achieve that and with the campaign of increasing quality and numbers of stock running, it is going to be possible. When farmers are finally able to produce enough, we will facilitate. We must remember that exporting involves a very thorough scientific phytosanitary standards process to make sure that the meat is free of any harmful substances for human consumption and the environment,” he said.

Ambassador Van Vranken  noted that Botswana recently procured a huge consignment of bulls to improve stock and continued to develop its agricultural sector with a fully equipped state-of-the-art artificial insemination facility.

“It is an ambitious and realistic development to adopt smart reproductive technology techniques,” he said, thus he encouraged Batswana to take advantage of United States huge thriving market which ‘offers competitive market for Botswana products’. He said Botswana was counted amongst countries with best farming practices primarily gravitating towards natural farming methods, 

“Her stock is range fed and not placed in feeding pans, which the people of United States value the most,” he said. Ends