GABORONE, (The Southern African Times) — Botswana is actively pursuing strategies for regional cooperation on infrastructure and integration to create more active routes and expand market access, the country’s foreign minister said Thursday.
Enhanced international partnership, particularly regional cooperation, is of paramount importance to the advancement of Botswana’s “transformation agenda,” Minister of International Affairs and Cooperation Lemogang Kwape told the Annual Ministerial Meeting of Foreign Ministers of Landlocked Developing Countries that was held virtually this year.
As a result, Botswana is creating more active trade routes and working with its neighbors to harmonize policies that will further facilitate trade, Kwape said.
“In that regard of creating more trade routes together with our neighbors in South Africa and Namibia, we have built a Trans-Kalahari Corridor, which is a highway aimed at facilitating faster and cheaper movement of goods and services between our countries,” Kwape said.
Botswana and its northern neighbor Zambia have also embarked on the construction of the Kazungula Bridge, a joint project to further facilitate the movement of goods and people within the Southern African Development Community region and others, he added.
According to Kwape, Botswana last year completed its review of the National Trade Policy and National Export Strategy to diversify economy and trade, improve its global competitiveness, and advance poverty eradication.
