Source: The Herald – Breaking news.
Foreign Affairs and International Trade Minister Professor Amon Murwira (right) meets his Botswana counterpart Dr Phenyo Butale in Harare yesterday. — Picture: Justin Mutenda 
Wallace Ruzvidzo
Herald Reporter
BOTSWANA holds relations with Zimbabwe in very “high regard”, the country’s Minister of International Relations, Dr Phenyo Butale, has said.
Speaking after paying a courtesy call on Foreign Affairs and International Trade Minister Professor Amon Murwira at his Munhumutapa offices in Harare yesterday, Dr Butale, who is in the country to attend the SADC Council of Ministers meeting, said his country was looking forward to the continuous upscaling of relations with Zimbabwe.
“We are here, first of all, to attend the SADC Council of Ministers, which is an important meeting that looks at the budget of SADC, that looks at the running of SADC and the various day-to-day issues of SADC.
“But as you know, Botswana and Zimbabwe continue to enjoy excellent relations and as the new Government in Botswana, we needed to meet with the Government of Zimbabwe to, first of all, say that we still hold relations with Zimbabwe in high regard.
“We still want to change, we want to reconfigure, to reinvigorate the already excellent relations between our two nations,” he said.
Dr Butale said the two ministers had agreed that there was scope for Harare and Gaborone to collaborate in various areas towards their full industrialisation.
“The meeting went very well because the two of us are in agreement that there is a lot that we can do together in the area where we agree on, which is that both of our countries want to embark on rapid industrialisation.
“So we want to work together in terms of trade between the two countries,” he said.
Dr Butale said the existing cordial people-to-people relations had set the foundation for increased co-operation.
“Our people are very close and therefore, they move towards business-to-business diplomacy and ensuring that we trade more with each other, we collaborate more with each other.
“So we come out of the meeting much more energised and happy that indeed the relations between Botswana and Zimbabwe, which are already excellent, will be changed to be much more beneficial for both countries,” he said.
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