(Special for CAFS) Botswanan entrepreneur expects to benefit from Chinese lithium investments in Zimbabwe

GABORONE, June 30 (Xinhua) -- As the popularity for clean energy future continues to rise, Botswana has got a chance to benefit from the huge investments the Chinese are making in lithium projects in neighboring Zimbabwe, a Botswanan entrepreneur said Saturday.

With Electric Vehicles (EVs) considered the future in the transport sector thereby propelling the lithium boom in Zimbabwe, Kangangwani Phatshwane, the managing director at Botswana Ash (Botash) Pty Ltd, said their products will soon be in high demand in Zimbabwe.

Botash is a company owned by the Botswana government and Chlor Alkali Holdings (Pty) Ltd, a South African owned company. It is the largest producer of natural sodium and related products in the region, currently producing several variants of sodium carbonate and sodium chloride.

Following the pushing for local beneficiation of lithium by the government of Zimbabwe, the decision creates a great potential for the Botswanan company to sell its soda ash in Botswana's northeastern neighbor, Phatshwane told Xinhua in an interview.

Botash's nameplate production capacity for soda ash is 300,000 tons per annum in line with demand, according to Phatshwane.

Cameron Hughes, a battery markets analyst at CRU Group, a business intelligence firm on global metals, said in the 2023 report that the Chinese investors racing to secure lithium supplies could help Zimbabwe rise to become the world's 5th largest primary producer of the material.