(Last Updated on October 31, 2015 by Editor)
ZIMBABWE – Business Botswana recently hosted a delegation led by president of Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) to discuss possible business opportunities for joint venture partnership.
The objective of the trade mission was to strengthen trade ties between Zimbabwe and Botswana business community.
Speaking at the seminar the Acting Business Botswana Chief Executive Officer Dichaba Molobe said their main mission was to advocate for a private sector driven economy.
He said they promote economic reforms to put Botswana on a higher economic growth path in order to generate wealth, prosperity and jobs for the nation.
“The issues that we are seized with include improving the country’s competitiveness, reducing the regulatory burden on firms and creating a business friendly environment to transform the economy and create jobs. We engage regularly with government to discuss ways of making it easy for businesses to start and operate in Botswana to boost our economy. I have no doubt that business links between the two countries is one way through which we could transfer management expertise and technical skills to Botswana from other countries such as yourselves,” said Molobe.
WELCOME REMARKS: Business Botswana acting CEO Dichaba Molobe giving welcome remarks
He said the meeting provides an in-depth exposure and sharing of business opportunities for both Zimbabwe and Botswana investors.
He said it will improve Foreign Direct Investment, which can only happen if the business environment is favourable.
Molobe said the need for a diversified economy is urgent because Botswana and other regional commodity exporters experience weak demand for commodity exports.
CZI President Busisa Moyo said due to economical crises the country went through for the past years they are looking at rebuilding industry and looking for new markets.
He said because of the years of hyper inflation the country went through there is a bit of setback in infrastructure development.
“Zimbabwe’s location is an advantage because it is a gate way into the rest of Africa. Both our countries have a large import bill on food, textile and other and export minerals so working together might help to come up with solutions. In 2009 we adopted the US Dollar as the local currency. Recently the reserve bank governor demonetized all the accounts that were held under Zimbabwe Dollar to create assurance legal that we are going to be using US Dollar for some time,” said Moyo