High net worth US investors to establish locally
Botswana’s investment agency, Botswana Investment and Trade Centre (BITC) is confident the over 25 high net worth investors that graced the US-Africa Business Summit this week will make contact with possible partners locally that will eventually lead to concrete trade and investment deals.
The Summit which ends today happens at a time when there are heightened calls for the African continent to build its productive capacities, deepen regional integration and pursue economic diversification.
Addressing the media earlier this week, BITC CEO, Kelotsositse Olebile said it is always a privilege to host an event of this magnitude, as it allows close contact with participants and delegates that could in the long run form commercial partnerships locally.
He revealed that some participating investors have been actively profiled by the BITC with a view to know the sectors and trades that they are engaged in to enable interaction with their local counterparts.
According to Olebile, BITC has selected about 25 high net worth investors and have a targeted value proposition that will be presented to them to consider Botswana. He explained that BITC targets at different levels, including exclusively in deal rooms and also through facilitating broadly the private sector through business-to-business sessions where they can meet and match-make.
“There will be a lot of meetings scheduled for private companies to meet with their visiting counterparts from the rest of Africa and from the US to see what deals they can cut,” he said.
Different ministries are also actively involved because as part of the profiling that has been done, some of the companies can be facilitated by decisions made by some of the ministries that run specific sectors.
“We are ready to cultivate as much investment as we can get from this Summit,” he asserted.
Olebile said to ensure that the ‘small man’ benefits from the Summit that have created excitement; they have ensured that they spread the cake in procurement as broadly as possible.
He added that one of the points they put forward in the earlier stages of engagement with the Corporate Council on Africa (CCA) was that as much of procurement as possible must be from Botswana, and that is the case.
Secondly, they did not look at service lines and give business to one supplier, but instead they have split procurement among several service providers. For example, where tech service providers are needed for translation and
communication during the Summit, they have split it among four companies.
In catering they have deliberately spread it among three local companies so that as many people as possibly can get the slice of the cake.
President and CEO of CCA, Florie Liser said as far as the Summit outcomes are concerned, seven or eight US institutional investors comprising of pension funds, who are in attendance will be looking out for investment
opportunities that Botswana can offer.
The institutional investors that boast of trillions of dollars under management are attending the Summit as part of the US delegation from states including, California and New York.
“We have been bringing such institutional investors to our sessions because they are cautious when investing the funds that they manage,” she said, adding that they see the momentum for investments in Africa as they receive a return on investment.
She however, cautioned that often times the expectation is that there will be immediate results from the Summit, explaining that when businesses get together for the first time, they are only planting a seed, and it would be unreasonable to expect results immediately.
“You have to first plant the seed and do all things necessary to water it through financing, go through the rules and regulations and licensing, among others, for the results to come,” she said.
Florie added that from past experience of their Summits, some positive outcomes come a year later and in some instances longer than that. In her view, the planting of the seed is the most important thing. She is optimistic that the Summit will eventually bear fruit.
The 15th US-Africa Business Summit is expected to go a long way in enhancing Africa’s value in global value chains. It is a major platform to strengthen US-Africa trade and investment ties and has been held in other African countries before, including Cape Town, South Africa, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Mozambique and Marrakech, Morocco.
For his part, Ambassador of Botswana to the US, Kitso Mokaila said his Washington office is involved in several activities that benefit Botswana. He told the media that among others, they have nurtured a relationship with National Geographic to carry out research projects in the Okavango Delta.
In the space of ICT, MOKQILQ, who’s been Botswana’s envoy to America since August 2020, revealed that they are working closely with the USTDA together with BOFINET to assist Botswana to achieve digitalisation. Currently, they are running a research and design project for network extension for the whole country.
In the Health sector, they recently facilitated US-based doctors to conduct 22 knee surgeries free of charge to the government of Botswana. They have also facilitated that American actor, Will Smith, come to Botswana to do a documentary on Human Wildlife conflict with Communities Living Among Wildlife Sustainably (CLAWS).