Business
Botswana diversifies into financial services: financial hub gains traction
Some 45 percent of the fund is being allocated to firms located in member countries of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), another 30 percent to North Africa, and the remaining 25 percent is split between East and West Africa. Vantage expects that these investments will mobilise about US$735 million in capital for medium-sized firms.
The IFSC hub’s attraction will be boosted through the provision of better facilities in the new Gaborone Central Business District. The mix of office and retail properties includes the already completed Square Towers and Mall, SADC House and Industrial Court. Nearing completion are Masa Towers – which will add much-needed accommodation capacity in the form of a Holiday Inn hotel – Exponential Towers and Time Plaza. However, additional government investment is needed in new infrastructure, including sufficient road capacity, adequate power supplies and direct international flights to Gaborone.
At present, the only way to reach Gaborone by air from outside Africa is via Johannesburg. International flight connections will become even more vital if the Gaborone diamond hub, which is being developed in parallel and includes downstream diamond-cutting and polishing factories, is to prove fully successful.
Botswana is the world’s second-largest rough-diamond producer by volume and first by value. De Beers, which mines diamonds in a 50:50 partnership with the government as Debswana Diamond Company, is moving its London-based international sorting and marketing operations entirely to Gaborone by the end of 2013.
Under its latest 10-year sales agreement with Botswana, signed in September 2011, an initial 10 percent of Debswana’s production can be sold locally. Previously 100 percent of the diamonds were marketed internationally. Thus from 2014 or earlier, De Beers’ Diamond Trading Company clients will need to fly to Gaborone during sales weeks instead of to London.
Source: The Africa Report
