The Botswana Investment Trade Center (BITC) is feeling bullish about 2012, having exceeded their Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) target by BWP1.037 billion through the former entity BEDIA. During the 2011/ 2012 financial year, BEDIA realised a total of BWP1.4 billion FDI against a target of BWP363 million.
During the year under review, BEDIA recorded the highest investment and employment figures since its inception. This has been attributed to the aggressive follow up strategy that the Business Development team embarked on.
“The investment realized is from companies as they started the conversion processes, while others are already fully operational,” stated the report.
BEDIA also undertook a deliberate move to encourage expansions and domestic investment by local companies.
“The strategy moving forward is to continue monitoring and following up on the investment leads to ensure that projects on the pipe line are converted to operational status,” said the report.
Through the former entity Botswana IFSC aggregated capital invested by accredited companies for the year 2011/12 stood at BWP13 billion, with a combined revenue of BWP593 million.
For the year under review, the tax revenue increased to BWP 29 million as compared to BWP14 million in 2010/11, signalling increased profitability, which could be attributed to the global economic recovery from the 2008 economic slowdown.
“BITC is making good progress in attracting FDI to Botswana and lot more still can be achieved amidst facing a competitive environment for FDI attraction,” said Letsebe Sejoe the Chief Operations Officer at BITC.
The report has revealed that during the 2011/2012 year, exports continued to show considerable increase due to improved market access in the region, especially into countries such as Zimbabwe, Namibia and Zambia. The generated export revenue amounted to P653.3 million against an annual target of P310million, indicating an increase of more that 50 percent.
Botswana has managed to realise significant growth from trading partners in the SADC region. Due to massive sales of salt and salt products into South Africa, the country continues to take the bulk of local products at 74 percent, with countries such as Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia and Mozambique.
Capital investment realized during the year cuts across different sectors of the economy namely: manufacturing of steel pipes, farming, mining, tourism, property development, ICT services, renewable energy, steel and plastic recycling.
Looking ahead, Sejoe said there is an urgent need for the country to improve the ease of doing business in order to improve its competitiveness and increase overall FDI. He added that BITC aspires to reach maximum FDI that would significantly contribute to the country’s GDP.
