27 Mar 2025

The pressing need to steer Botswana away from its present status of being a consumer economy, and the need to simultaneously foster and drive inter-Africa trade form the basis of President Advocate Duma Boko’s visit to Mozambique.

Minister for International Relations Dr Phenyo Butale said in an interview yesterday that with Botswana’s economy generally inert, strategic nation-to-nation partnerships were important vehicles on the back of which the country could ride in the bid to realise some of its critical aspirations.

Dr Butale said President Boko’s visit to Mozambique was therefore in sync with government resolve to build a robust and vibrant economy that could be counted among the best both within and outside the continent.

“We want our economy jacked out of inertia, that is why we are in a hurry to industrialise,” he said, also stating how the need to create sustainable jobs to address growing unemployment compelled government to aggressively drive efforts to transform Botswana’s economy.

Elaborating further on the anticipated outcome of Advocate Boko’s visit, he said with Botswana and Mozambique enjoying long-standing, cordial bilateral relations dating back to the mid-1970s, the former stood to benefit from their enhancement in key sectors such as defence, energy, transport and logistics, and in infrastructure development.

He said Mozambique on the one hand had shown keenness to borrow a leaf from Botswana’s book in the area of governance in light of the latter having distinguished itself as one of the world’s most mature democracies.

In respect of the president’ scheduled tour of the Maputo thermoelectric power plant, which forms part of his itinerary, Dr Butale said Botswana, like the bulk of the global population, was steadily stepping up efforts to tap into the green energy space.

He said the country was positioning itself and setting into motion processes to ultimately generate, through renewable energy, enough power for both local consumption and export.

“As a country we are intent on harnessing the power of renewable energy, and our goal is to have electricity production exceed local demand so that we can sell our surplus to other countries,” he said.

As part of his engagements, President Boko is scheduled to hold official talks with President Daniel Chapo of Mozambique.

In addition to touring the SADC Humanitarian and Emergency Operations Centre in Nacala, Advocate Boko is also expected to visit different ports such as the Nacala and the Maputo ports.

He is will also fly over Panto Techobanine port, an P89.2 billion (US$6.5 billion) project meant to facilitate trade in the SADC countries of Botswana, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. Ends