“At present, 75 percent of Swaziland’s electricity is bought from South Africa, with 5 percent from Mozambique, but we are now planning to build a power plant,” she said.
In a drive to increase the country's competitiveness and create links between research and industry, the Swazi government is working on building an information, communications and technology park, to be funded through a loan from the Export-Import Bank of India.
Another much larger research and development facility is a science and biotechnology park, with initial funding for its infrastructure design phase coming from the Taiwanese government and the master plan and designs done by CECI Engineering Consultants, Taiwan.
“This is the story of our biotechnology dream. We have a lot of natural resources to develop biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, to make cosmetics and medicine, but we don’t have a research and development facility,” said Moses Zungu, project manager at the Royal Science Technology Park.
“We want to capture some materials we have in the country and add value to them, so that we can make a decent income out of that, to sustain ourselves, to create skills and new products,” Zungu told reporters. “It will change the whole trade landscape for the country.”
Swaziland also aims to boost its tourism industry, with a goal of doubling the number of tourists — currently at 1.3 million — within a year and attracting tourists from continents other than Africa and Europe.
Its new Sikhuphe International Airport is expected to begin operations in December.
Swazi Minister of Tourism, Environment and Communications Thandie Shongwe said his country was looking forward to opening direct flights to and from Taiwan to attract more Taiwanese who are “high on tourism” to explore the culture of the “clean” and “smiling” Swaziland.
RSS