NKURENKURU – Kavango West regional governor Sirkka Ausiku says it is important that the region’s investment conference planned for 31 October gets the necessary support from all Namibians.
“It’s important because we are also focusing on engaging our local people with investors, we want the region to make use of the available natural resources with the support of investors that can help finance projects and so on,” Ausiku noted.
The Office of the Governor of Kavango West Region in collaboration with the Kavango West Regional Council and the Nkurenkuru Town Council will host the region’s first investment conference.
The conference will bring together high level policymakers, agencies and funding institutions to discuss ways to accelerate the economic development of the region through investments.
The event will provide a platform to showcase development and investment opportunities in a region with vast potential and enormous natural resources.
Potential investors will have the opportunity to hear what the region has to offer in the different sectors of the economy.
“I’m so excited, I hope the outcome will be positive because it’s also the first time we are engaging the local people to do something different from what they have been doing with the support of potential investors that we want to engage them with,” Ausiku said. According to Ausiku, it’s important that this conference gets the necessary support from all, including local, international investors, the traditional authorities as well as the entire country.
“I have been visiting traditional leaders in the region and they are supporting the event. We want our local business people to enter into joint ventures instead of investors just coming to get land and just hire our people, we want our people to be involved. We have water and land to our advantage and agriculture is our backbone,” she added.
“If there can be a mahangu plantation and milling in the region, it will really benefit our people because it’s also our staple food here, citrus or fruits plantations are also welcome in the region as we have the land and water and also horticulture is ideal for our region. Our business people just need to engage with the right investors with money in order to establish this variety of projects and industries,” she continued.
At the moment, there are no industries in Kavango West and that is the status Ausiku and the Kavango West Regional Council wants to change. “We are able and can do a lot of things, we just need support. We need investors,” she said.
Just like an upcoming artist, Kavango West is a young and upcoming region that lacks behind in terms of development. The region is predominantly rural (99.99 perecent) with a mere 0.01 percent residing in urban areas and according to the 2018 Namibia Labour Force Survey, its regional unemployment rate stands at 33.0 percent, while among the youth it stands at 46.8 percent.
Despite all these challenges, the region possess enormous natural resources, which if exploited can change the status quo and uplift the socio-economic status of the region for the better. In order to kick start development in the region and transform its socio-economic status, a number of regional initiatives have been initiated such as: Kavango West Development profile, Operation Katemo, Kavango West Regional Economic Investment Opportunities booklet and the Kavango West Regional Development Fund and Nkurenkuru Business Expo. There is also a research on value addition for indigenous products done by Unam.
John Muyamba
2019-10-21 06:35:43 | 8 months ago
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