08 Sep 2024

Government is eyeing China as a potential market for Botswana beef which is full-flavoured, lean and of very high quality . 

President Dr Mokgweeetsi Eric Keabetswe Masisi revealed this during the Forum On China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) thematic round table discussions in China recently. 

He highlighted that government and the business community acknowledged the demographics of China, together with the vast geography, hence China presented a huge market for African products, including those from Botswana. 

He noted that agricultural development and productivity had great potential to leapfrog economies. President Masisi said Botswana had intensified efforts to seek collaborative partnerships for the transformation of the agricultural sector. 

For that reason, he said China was one such strategic partner that Botswana admired for its technological achievements in, amongst others, Artificial Intelligence and integration of technologies in day-to-day life for economic development and upliftment of the people. 

“As Botswana strives to become a knowledge-based economy, there is great interest in collaborating with China in strategic industries, including biotech, diagnostics, automation and the digitilisation of the agricultural sector,” he said. 

In this regard, President Masisi noted that Botswana was already in collaboration with well-established Chinese institutions such as the Hubei International Science and Technology Exchange Centre to explore the possibility of establishing technology demonstration centres in Botswana as well as the Academy of Agricultural Planning and Engineering, which is assisting in developing a Botswana Agricultural Development Plan. 

He said government highly regarded agriculture as one of the driving forces to transform Botswana from the current upper middle-income status to a high-income country by 2036. By way of background, President Masisi said agriculture in Botswana, despite making only a small contribution to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), remained the mainstay of rural household livelihoods, making the sector one of the most important in the economy. 

“The importance of agriculture in Botswana also stems from the fact that the country’s economic growth has been concentrated in the diamond and tourism sub sectors,” President Masisi said. 

He added that the significance of diversifying the country’s economic base had therefore become a more pressing need. He said agriculture had been identified as one of the possible avenues through which this diversification could be done sustainably. 

“To contribute towards this overall objective, one of the agricultural sector objectives, which has not yet been realised, has been to transform and diversify the agricultural production base,” he said. 

As such, President Masisi said the development of the agricultural sector in Botswana presented great opportunities for growth of the economy and improvement of livelihoods. 

He said the answer to the transformation of the agricultural sector relied in the sector’s industrialisation and modernisation. 

President Masisi highlighted that it was for that reason that government had invested heavily in the agricultural sector and was implementing support programmes that promote access to innovative financing and best technologies for both crops and livestock. 

He said advanced reproductive technologies, such as artificial insemination and embryo transfer were adopted to promote the genetic improvement of livestock. ENDS