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Business Reporter
The national trade development and promotion body, ZimTrade, last week signed a MoU with Botswana Investment and Trade Centre (BITC) during the Zimbabwe-Botswana Business Forum held in Gaborone last week.

The Forum was attended by the President of Zimbabwe, and senior government officials and business people from Botswana and Zimbabwe. This was a positive step towards improving bilateral relations between the two countries.

The partnership between ZimTrade and BITC was a key deliverable from a day of high-powered meetings, as it will see the two trade bodies sharing market intelligence, supporting each other’s capacity development as well as co-organising trade development and promotional activities.

Speaking after the signing, ZimTrade acting CEO, Norman Savado implored business people to take advantage of their proximity to Botswana and to make use of the Bilateral Trade Agreement between the two countries as well as the favourable trade preferences offered by the Sadc Trade Protocol. According to Trade Map, trade between our two countries fell 40,39 percent between 2012 and 2016.

We exported just over $29 million to Botswana in 2016 – a far cry from the potential that is there and Botswana’s imports from Zimbabwe constitute 0,35 percent of the country’s total import bill which is also insignificant.

To assist in tapping into the market, ZimTrade conducted a market survey from February 5 to 16 and findings from the survey will be disseminated in March 2018.