China has committed itself to work together with Botswana in a bid to improve its food security plan.
Speaking during a donation ceremony held at the Chinese Embassy, the Chinese Ambassador to Botswana, Liu Huanxing, said “food security is a great challenge for Africa and China and the mutual economic and technological cooperation between China and Botswana, especially in Agricultural sector, has broad prospects”.
Huanxing said China is a traditional agriculture country and lays great emphasis on agricultural development and the application of new technologies and Botswana can greatly benefit from that.
In 2009, the Chinese government dispatched 3 senior experts in the field of agriculture economy, agriculture equipment and irrigation as a new form of providing technical assistance to Botswana and enhancing the Agriculture bilateral cooperation.
Huanxing said “there is still the possibility that some more Chinese experts can still come into the country to help in the development of the agriculture sector”.
He added that more people should come and invest in the agriculture sector, considering the good climatic conditions in the country, especially in the Northern region and also good agriculture policies.
He said so far at least two Chinese have invested in the country and are producing vegetables and quite a number have come in to assess the investment climate.
Huanxing said the last two decades have witnessed the rapid increase not only in the trade volume, but also in China’s investment and assistance to Botswana.
The bilateral trade saw steady growth last year, with an increase in the trade volume from 231 million US dollars in 2009 to over 300 million us dollars in 2010.The volume of direct investment to Botswana reached over 9 million US dollars in 2010.
“We are more than willing to provide further assistance to Botswana to develop agriculture and hope that the profound ChinaÔÇôBotswana mutual beneficial relationships will continue to flourish and expand into new dimensions. He added that “our two countries share similar development goals and besides our two economies are complementary”.
Huanxing handed over a Jeep Cherokee and two air conditioners to the Assistant Minister of Agriculture, Orreditse Molebatsi.
On receiving the donation, Molebatsi appreciated the donation saying “these facilities will go a long way in promoting our development efforts”.
Huanxing said these developments are in line with the China-Africa forum that was held in 2009, in which 8 measures to further strengthen Agriculture cooperation in Africa were agreed on.
Huanxing told The Telegraph that China has plans to build three primary schools, develop solar and biogas project s as sample for energy development in the country.
