Africa-Press – Botswana. A historic sales agreement signed in April by Botswana with its longtime business partner, De Beers, to renew and further solidify the long-standing relationship of many years puts Botswana in better stead to look beyond the horizons of mining.
The deal gives Botswana a greater stake of up to 50 per cent of rough production by 2025. It includes investments in local beneficiation, skills development, and infrastructure that will bring more value, spur growth, and create more jobs for Batswana.
President Advocate Duma Boko, who was attending the largest diamond trade show in the world in Las Vegas and championing the campaign for Botswana natural diamonds to the world and, in particular, the lucrative American market, echoed these words when giving a keynote address to retailers, jewelers and other captains of the diamond industry on Friday.
“We are repositioning Botswana as a hub of luxury and innovation and making sure our policy environment matches our ambition,” he said, adding that it was to this end that more efforts had been channelled towards modernisation of the country’s policy framework by doing away with bureaucracies that stood in the way of progress.
President Boko said this was done in addition to the fact that Botswana had the highest credit rating in Africa.
The idea he presented to his audience was to make Botswana an easier, more transparent, and faster place to do business for investors and entrepreneurs willing to set up businesses within the shores of the diamond-rich Southern African state.
“For investors and entrepreneurs here at JCK, please know this: Botswana is open for investment and ready to partner, and we are developing targeted economic incentive packages to high potential sectors, including luxury goods, tourism, technology and green energy,” he stated in his spirited pitch.
Additionally, President Boko stated that Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions (MICE) in the hospitality and tourism space was well within the government’s radar and ambition to onboard investors.
He thus extended an invitation to potential investors at the Venetian Expo to join in the incredible development journey that would help Botswana realise its ambitions.
President Boko cited the recently signed landmark agreement between Debswana and Botswana Power Corporation for the supply of renewable energy as one of the many positives towards the realisation of a sustainable journey by Botswana, an undertaking he said signalled the government’s commitment to becoming carbon neutral by 2030.
The development would ensure that Botswana diamonds were not only ethically sourced but also environmentally responsible, setting the bar high for sustainable luxury, he underscored.
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