30 Mar 2025

Despite Botswana’s lack of direct access to the sea, the country’s renewed vigour to build a thriving economy, one in which citizens enjoy admirable returns, has seen the country cast its net wider, seeking to build strategic partnerships that could help open up more trade routes.

In tandem with the dream to industrialise, the move has seen the country look eastward to Mozambique for sea access, and some of the anticipated outcomes will be to edge the nation towards self-sufficiency in an array of commodities, in the process lowering the import bill and also creating sustainable jobs in response to growing unemployment that the citizenry is presently enduring.

To add speed to efforts to establish access to the sea through leveraging on the solid bilateral relations between Botswana and its compatriot in the SADC regional bloc, President Advocate Duma Boko led a delegation to Mozambique last week, and used the visit as a launching pad to efforts to explore opportunities for collaboration in that regard.

Minister for International Relations, Dr Phenyo Butale, who was part of President Boko’s delegation had described the President’s tour of the three ports of Nacala, Maputo and Techobanine as an important opportunity to appreciate first-hand and gain insights on the impact of the facilities on trade in Mozambique.

According to him, it also painted a picture of how Botswana could enjoy considerable returns from gaining access to Mozambique’s coastline, and noted that a seamless flow of goods would help Botswana to successfully deliver on its dream to transform and grow its economy through industrialisation.

Though Botswana has a standing agreement with Mozambique and Zimbabwe on the establishment of a 1 700 kilometre railway corridor dubbed the Ponta Techobanine Railway Project, the country is seeking to explore additional avenues to improve its export volumes. The possibility of greater access to markets created by the 1.54 billion people in the African continent is inspiration strong enough to drive the move to secure more trade routes.

During their engagements in Mozambique’s city of Nacala on the first day of the visit, Advocate Boko and his Mozambican counterpart, Mr Daniel Chapo made commitments to explore the possibility of Botswana also using the port of Nacala in addition to the standing agreements relating to the Maputo port and the impending Ponta Techobanine port.

The two leaders concurred that a smooth flow of goods between their countries, and through the entire region would aid social and economic development.

Botswana Oil chief executive officer, Mr Meshack Tshekedi said on Saturday at the end of President Boko’s two-day official visit to Mozambique that opportunities abound for Botswana to export commodities such as coal through the Port of Maputo.

According to Mr Tshekedi, Botswana currently moved goods through the Port of Maputo which handled the bulk of the cargo that Mozambique and its neighbouring countries received from the Middle East and Asia.

“It also handles export of coal from the region to the Asian and European markets, so there is an opportunity for Botswana to also export our coal via the Port of Maputo,” he said.

The Botswana Oil head believes that the development of Ponta Techobanine project which entails a deep-sea port and a heavy haulage railway line by Botswana was a welcome development for the sub-region.

“If this infrastructure is developed, it will make Maputo a major export route for the majority of the region’s countries especially Botswana where we aspire to export our minerals, as well as import our petroleum requirements especially from the Middle East,” said Mr Tshekedi and explained that developing the Ponta Techobanine, Botswana would be able to move goods with ease through Mozambique. ENDS