12 Mar 2024

Botswana is developing a National Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Strategy in partnership with the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA).

This was revealed by Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr Mmusi Kgafela presenting the ministry’s 2024/25 budget to Parliament on Monday.

Mr Kgafela said the strategy aimed at identifying opportunities and ways for the private sector to capitalise on the agreement through regional value chains and cross border trade.

He said the national strategy, expected to be complete by June, would support effective implementation of AfCFTA.

He added that Botswana was also on the final stages of gazetting Southern African Customs Union (SACU) tariff concessions under the AfCFTA and Botswana’s private sector would be able to access the market of 1.3 billion people beginning April 1.

“This gives the private sector access to larger market for inputs, raw materials and imports as well as exports of goods and services on favourable terms,” he said.

On the ease of doing business, he said the ministry launched a three-year Job Creation and Investment Climate programme in June 2021 in collaboration with the European Union.

He said the programme aimed to improve Botswana’s business climate with a view to attract and retain more investment in order to streamline business processes and develop eco-tourism value chains.

Ongoing activities, he said, included rationalising state-owned entities, digitalising the One-Stop-Service centre to facilitate remote investor services, developing alternative and commercial dispute resolution framework as well as auditing and analysing business laws to identify gaps.

Furthermore, Parliament learnt that the ministry would accelerate reforms to stimulate economic diversification, enhance domestic production and improve export competitiveness.

In September last year, Botswana reported a trade deficit of P5.6 billion, with a growth of the manufacturing sector slowing down to 1.3 per cent during the current fiscal year compared to 7.6 per cent of the previous period, challenging the ministry to ramp up trade. Some of the reforms included continuous review of the import bill with a view to identify products with domestic production potential to direct investment.

To that end, Mr Kgafela said cement and furniture manufacturing were earmarked for intervention.

Parliament also learnt that market access for local products, both domestic and international markets, had improved owing to the establishment of National Quality Policy (NQP), whose objective was to increase market access for local products.

He said key milestones achieved under the NQP included establishment of dedicated office, forming an Inter-Ministerial Coordinating Committee and extensive outreach to cover 50 organisations spanning business associations, government ministries, national quality institutions and SMEs, among others. He said in-house database would be done to enhance development of evidence-based policies through the newly established research and policy development department in collaboration with Statistics Botswana. ENDs