Namibia forecasts N$114.5bn GDP boost by 2040

Namibia’s Green Industrialisation Agenda is expected to increase the country’s Gross Domestic Profit (GDP) by N$114.5 billion by 2040, President Hage Geingob said at the 2023 Africa Energy Week in Cape Town, South Africa.

The initiative is a well-crafted strategy to establish a clean synthetic fuels industry that has the potential to double the existing employed labour force by yielding more than 600,000 direct, indirect and induced employment opportunities.

“Yes, we are experiencing a renaissance in renewable and non-renewable energy sources on our continent, which will permit us to arrest the challenges of poverty, the protection of our planet and the industrialisation of Africa,” Geingob said.

He also said that Namibia’s exploration of hydrocarbons on its shores while pursuing the potential that the green and blue economy provide for the country is not contradictory. He said the two can co-exist and are interdependent because hydrocarbons continue to power the economy while energy transitions lag, with many nations needing decades to reach carbon neutrality.

“This is why in Namibia, our stance remains that for as long as the world continues to need a dynamic energy mix, Namibia is more than willing to meet these global energy demands while strategically using the proceeds to invest in cleaner, more sustainable industries ourselves,” he said.

According to Geingob, developing nations cannot compete with more developed countries in producing cleaner energy mechanisms because developed nations use the money generated from industries fuelled by hydrocarbons to fund their green projects.

“These subsidies and incentives, which are disproportionately deployed in developed nations, are undermining, and in some cases undoing, prospective business cases in emerging nations with the superior natural endowments necessary for developing new green industries,” he said.

Geingob added that African countries should be allowed to make full use of their natural resources for the betterment of the continent. He also said commitments to building clean and sustainable industries on the continent should be welcomed.

“Doing so is essential to not only respect mother nature’s thresholds for bearing our unsustainable consumptive vices but also to ensure that our natural resources are developed in a manner that maximises benefits for the African continent,” he said.