KEETMANSHOOP – With only seven years left to Namibia achieving its vision of becoming an industrialised nation by 2030, minister of Industrialisation and Trade Lucia Iipumbu has expressed optimism that the discovery of oil and the potential green hydrogen industry will help this vision be achieved.
Iipumbu, who made the remarks during the official opening of the 67th Keetmanshoop Agricultural, Industrial and Tourism Expo on Tuesday, said should the oil and green hydrogen industries take off, the building and growth of industries will be magnificent.
“We are left with seven years before 2030, and we do not believe we have achieved as much as we wanted to achieve… While we thought we were not going to anyway, there we found oil and green hydrogen, and these are all inputs to the industrialisation agenda,” she said.
She said the //Kharas region has had mining activities that kept the region going; however, such activities have lifespans, and they are being exhausted; there is a need to find new dimensions and new industries to develop for future sustainability when the minerals have reached their lifespan.
The minister urged the inhabitants of the region to work in unison regardless of their political affiliation or race.
“Let us work together; let us embrace innovation; let us look for opportunities – not just for us individually but as a community. Let us foster collaboration and networking because only through this we will ensure that we continue to grow and develop this region,” she said.
The minister said there is a need for the reopening of the Brukkaros abattoir and the setting up of abattoirs in the region to ensure the meat is processed within the region.
“It breaks my heart to see all our beautiful goats and sheep transported to South Africa to be processed and then end up in the market as South African products, we want in the future to revive abattoirs that we have here, to be able to process the meat then export as our product. Every day there is a knock on my door from the Middle-East countries looking for small stock meat which we are not able to process,” she said.
– Nampa
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