BITC and Lobatse council chart new economic path
01 Jun 2025
Collaboration between Botswana Investment Trade Center (BITC) and local authorities is critical to diversifying and growing the country’s investment portfolio.
BITC business intelligence executive director, Dr Margaret Sengwaketse said they were open to collaborate with councils on domestic investment promotion. She said that stakeholders needed to come together to attract investment at district level hence contribute to economic diversification. She was addressing councillors and other stakeholders responsible for development in Lobatse on Wednesday as the town authorities prepared to chart a new economic path for the district.
The engagement focused on the Local Economic Development Framework, aimed at guiding the development of a LED strategy for the town. She said diamonds, which were the main revenue earner for the country had dropped, hence the need to explore other existing avenues and gradually develop them. Further, Dr Sengwaketse said the country had a very high import bill, which needed to be reduced.
She said there were opportunities in agriculture, food and beverages, manufacturing and processing as such it was critical to position players along such investment opportunities to harness the benefits. Additionally, she said local authorities played a critical role to facilitate such as they had the capacity to make policies and come up with enabling acts to build an inclusive economy. She said BITC facilitated strengthening local value chains through coming up with economic profiles of the districts.
“We promote as much as possible products that are produced locally through the Botswana Exporter Development programme. We have product listing in local retail stores such as Choppies, Clicks, Square Mart as such, we need to work closely with councils to help us identify those producers that can meet quality requirements of markets outside,” she said.
She said local producers were capable of meeting international market standards as BITC had listed producers who were able to sell to markets in the United States of America. She said BITC supported local exporters and released factory certification for those who met the requirements. She added that BITC was intentional about working with local authorities and other stakeholders to see how fast they could facilitate licensing when working collectively.
“This is one of the areas where we have not done well as a country. Investors want to be facilitated fast. We can co-finance studies together, we can partner and do training programmes to ensure that we improve on these areas,” she said.
Dr Sengwaketse stressed the need for stakeholders to work together to ensure seamless facilitation of investors.
“Councils have a lot of responsibility because you make ByLaws, let us make licensing shorter,” she said.
Chobe District Council economist, Ms Bazwadzi Gaotlogwe said to drive the transformation agenda in district councils required strong collaborations with all stakeholders. Thus, she said plans were underway to collaborate with BITC on strategic economic frameworks in order to deliver the much-needed results.
She said coming up with local economic assessment for the district required robust research as decisions must be data driven, have statistics, adding that councils needed MoU with BITC for a working relationship that would collectively bear high impact results.
Special Economic Zone Authority (SEZ) director of strategy and stakeholder engagement, Ms Orekolotse Koloi said implementation of SEZ was critical in driving local economic development at district level to deliver the much needed employment opportunities.
However, she noted they still experienced challenges in terms of implementing the SEZ Act as some legal its instruments were in conflict with other existing laws. She said they had since engaged Attorney Generals to assist, adding that in countries where SEZ were fully functional; with no impeding bureaucracies, more jobs had been created within a short period. ENDS
Source : BOPA
Author : Calviniah Kgautlhe
Location : Lobatse
Event : Full council meeting
Date : 01 Jun 2025