The Economic Development Board (EDB) of Mauritius intends to explore business opportunities in Namibia and create partnerships, as it seeks to create direct trading links, with a long-term vision of joining hands in value addition.
According to the head of EDB, Geerish Bucktowonsing, Mauritius is exploring areas in which it can form a partnership with Namibia, especially on value addition, in an effort to improve exports.
“As you may be aware, Mauritius has been good at advancing value addition for decades which is how we have been growing the economy. Therefore, we seek alliance as we look out for possible products that may be available in Namibia, where we can collaborate and add value. This will be great, as we shall leverage more from the AGOA and AFCTA to which both countries are signatories. Hence, by joining hands, we can become lead exporters in the region,” said Bucktowonsing who is leading an entourage of 15 business people in Namibia.
He said this during the Trade and Investment Business forum underway in Windhoek, organised by the Namibia Investment Promotion and Development Board.
The Business Forum, which ends tomorrow, is hosted under the theme, “Developing new regional value chains”, and aims to explore and harness opportunities for economic cooperation, trade expansion and investment.
“Mauritius is the highest contributor of the 35% exports under the AGOA while representing only 1% of exports in Africa. Therefore, we need to work together to change this status and work more on manufacturing and value addition, so that we can produce some products for Africa, and the world. Hence, with Namibia, we may create direct links, which can be extended to our existing target markets thus creating diversity,” Bucktowonsing stated.
He further revealed that Mauritius offers incentives for new investors such as an 8-year income tax holiday, exemption of payment of registration duty and land transfer tax, customs duty exemption on plant, machinery and equipment including VAT exemption, as well as a 5% tax credit.
Meanwhile, NIPDB’s Executive Director for MSME Innovation & Acceleration Dino Balloti said Namibia trails on the heels of value addition, as the government has taken a strong stance against the export of raw materials.
“We look forward to these types of partnerships, as we aim to fully unlock the benefits of our growth at home strategy, by ensuring that we create manufacturing industries that can grow the economy and eventually create employment,” he said.
In addition, August 26’s Managing Director Ndapewa Hangula said her focus was on the textile and clothing sector to devise ways to grow from the industry and leverage collaborative relationships with countries that are well advanced in that area.
“We as members of SADC can really stand to benefit from such collaborative relationships. We need to look at creating our own regional airbus and look at spreading the value chain across the SADC region. In addition, we need to gauge how each can contribute towards the development of the region by playing an important and strategic role in developing or crafting whatever our airbus would be,” stated Hangula.
“And of course, these are discussions that would enable us to identify that and really take advantage of whatever niche market we might have within the SADC region, through the opportunities that are brought by either the AGOA or the AFCTA, with the aim of not only growing the industries but addressing issues such as unemployment and skills development.”
