28 Aug 2024

Business Botswana is a change maker of the self-sufficient economy the country strives for.

This was said by the President of Foodpreneur and Senior International Market Linkages Expert, Ms Esther Pasarakis, during the 17^th National Business Botswana Conference in Francistown.

Ms Pasarakis said as an advocator of business regulatory issues, Business Botswana played a major role in enabling a good business environment and promoting virtuous industrial relations.

She said Botswana should have more coaches and mentors that implement methods to be used to produce enough food to sustain the country and export.

She said Botswana’s vegetable import moratorium has proven to be one of the key players to economic transformation in an effort to achieve prosperity for all citizens.

She pointed out that the moratorium benefits producers as they are able to produce enough to sell even to small scale retailers as the market was not congested.

“Individual empowerment is good but it should be elevated to the partnership level so as to cater for people to share more skills and ideas,” Ms Pasarakis said.

Ms Pasarakis also applauded government for vegetable import moratorium as it allowed for small businesses in the country to sprout and also create a better business opportunity for locals.

Ms Pasarakis said the country’s response to Covid-19 and Foot and Mouth Disease outbreaks proved that Botswana was capable of implementing better strategies for economic resuscitation.

She urged different stakeholders to focus on implementing better and transformative ways of business operations so as to attract better opportunities.

Mr Thapelo Kebalete, a farmer, said Business Botswana provided them with a platform to learn more about ways of improving themselves and their brands for the betterment of their businesses.

Mr Kebalete said as businesses they also got motivation from fellow attendees which was important in running their businesses and creating fresh ideas.

He said getting an opportunity to learn from experts helped them to make effective marketing plans to benefit their businesses. Ends