Heads of the Botswana diplomatic mission convened in Gaborone on Wednesday with the aim of finding the means through which to assist the country’s efforts of diversifying the economy. They reportedly seek to do this by promoting various economic sectors to the international community and helping local goods gain access to a wider, global market.
Addressing the envoys during the 2018 Heads of Diplomatic Mission Consultative Forum, the National Strategy Office Director General, Uttum Corea said the country needs to promote areas of the economy where Botswana holds a comparative advantage to the outside world. Corea said benchmarking excursions have been used for strategic analysis with a view to identifying areas of improvement in the cluster focus areas of Financial and Knowledge Intensive Services (FKIBS), beef and tourism.
Speaking on behalf of the FKIBS cluster, the Botswana Investment and Trade Center business analyst, Nomakhosi Mookodi said that through a benchmarking exercise in Chile, they learnt how the country is working on diversifying its economy from one based on minerals to other sectors including financial services. She said Botswana, being an English speaking country with a similar time zone to many European countries, should also consider targeting companies that can provide similar services to Europe operating from Botswana.
On behalf of the tourism cluster, Ministry of Environment, Natural Resources Conservation and Tourism Chief Tourism Officer, Temalo Lesetlhe said the ministry is trying to increase its presence to the younger generation of tourists while maintaining a low volume, high-value approach to tourism.
YourBotswana View… I’m a little taken aback by this article because I have always thought promoting Botswana abroad and benchmarking against those countries was already part of an envoy’s duty! Just goes to show how much we know. Which leads me to the question, what exactly do envoys do abroad?
Source: xinhuanet.com
