TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Eswatini is looking for more Taiwanese investment, Prime Minister of Eswatini Russell Dlamini said at a seminar on Wednesday (March 20).

“Eswatini is ready for a partnership, Eswatini is ready for business and to partner with the people of Taiwan,” Dlamini said. He pointed out that the southern African nation is the most stable country in the region and has access to a market of more than 1.2 billion people on the continent.

Eswatini is host to 25 Taiwanese companies in the production sector, Dlamini said. Collectively, these companies employ 15,000 workers and have invested more than NT$3.19 billion (US$100 million).

“Eswatini is hungry for more Taiwanese investors,” Dlamini said, adding that he was in Taiwan to “spark interest from other companies to invest in Eswatini.”

The prime minister said Taiwan could use Eswatini as a “spring board” to gain access to the continental market. Also, Eswatini could “reap the dividend accruing from our diplomatic ties with Taiwan.”

Dlamini said the continued presence of Taiwanese companies in Eswatini was a result of signing the bilateral Economic Cooperation Agreement in 2018. He said his country aims to diversify into other industries in the manufacturing sector such as stationary products, polymer, and electrical products.

“Eswatini is ready for business,” he said.

Eswatini Investment Promotion Authority head of investment promotion Martin N. Masilela said Eswatini offers an educated and trainable workforce as well as a pro-business government that backs a private sector-led economy. Additionally, though it is a landlocked nation, Eswatini is within a reasonable distance from Maputo Port in Mozambique and Durban Port in South Africa and has an efficient cargo terminal to transport raw materials to neighboring countries, he said.

Eswatini imported more than US$10 million and exported more than US$6 million worth of goods from Taiwan between 2022 and 2023, Masilela said. Besides health products, confectionary, footwear, polymer products, and electrical products, Eswatini and Taiwan could cooperate in tourism, renewable energy, commercial research and development, and agro-processing, he said.

A corporate tax concession and subsidized factory space could help facilitate closer economic cooperation and investment ties, he said. Echoing Dlamini, Masilela said Taiwan could use Eswatini to access the African continent and beyond.

The two countries established diplomatic ties in 1968.