Nyusi urges Botswana businesses to invest in Mozambique

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Nyusi urges Botswana businesses to invest in Mozambique

6:38 CAT | 17 Apr 2018

Photo: Lusa

Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi on Monday reaffirmed his invitation to Botswanan businesses to invest in Mozambique and make use of the potential and countless opportunities that the country offers.

Nyusi issued the invitation at a banquet offered to the new President of Botswana, Mokgweetsi Masisi, who was on a one day visit to Mozambique.

The Mozambican authorities, he said, hope that Botswana will participate in investment projects in Mozambique, “particularly the development transport corridors, the generation and transmission of electricity, transport and communications, tourism, and agriculture and livestock”.

Nyusi said he would like to see such projects under way as soon as possible. They would constitute added value for the socio-economic development of the two countries and for encouraging regional and continental integration.

He urged unity between the business classes of the two countries in order to participate actively in investment projects.

Nyusi stressed the historic relations of friendship and solidarity between Mozambique and Botswana, dating back to the struggle for independence and self-determination. He hoped that these relations could be raised to a still higher level “so that we may harvest more benefits from them for the progress and well-being of our two countries and peoples”.

He thanked Masisi for Botswana’s support in transforming into a museum the house where Mozambique’s first President, Samora Machel, had stayed when he was making his way to Dar es Salaam, in Tanzania, to join the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo).

This is a museum intended to transmit to the younger generations the traditions and values of nationalism and brotherhood. Nyusi said that it is almost complete.

Samora Machel museum in Lobatse, Botswana, finally takes off

Masisi declared that Mozambique is a “strategic partner” of Botswana. He said the conditions for collaboration rest on the solid basis laid by the founding Presidents of the two countries, Samora Machel and Seretse Khama.

“Our strategic partnership in areas such as agriculture, energy, transport and tourism will continue to bear fruit and mutual advantages”, he added. “We shall continue to work on development in areas where we have competitive advantages”.

One of the areas that the government delegations headed by the two Presidents discussed earlier in the day was a deep water mineral port at Ponto Techobanine, in the southernmost Mozambican district of Matutuine that would be linked to Botswana with a new railway running across southern Zimbabwe.

The Botswanan Minister of Infrastructure, Science and Technology, Nolofo Molefhi, told reporters that the Techobanine port would be “very important” for Botswana. He said the discussions concerned the need “to encourage the collaboration of the private sector, without which this project cannot be complete”.

Mozambican Foreign Minister Jose Pacheco described Techobanine as a “triangular initiative” between Mozambique, Botswana and Zimbabwe. He said the presidents of the three countries would soon hold a working meeting to discuss how to implement the project.

In agriculture, the two countries agreed that Botswana should use its experience to set up an artificial insemination centre in Mozambique to produce cattle embryos, and also assist in the production of effective vaccines against the strains of foot and mouth disease found in Mozambique.