The domestic economy grew by 1.9 percent quarter-on-quarter in the second quarter of 2017, up from 0.2 percent in the first quarter, data from the statistics office showed on Thursday.
In the notes accompanying the quarterly GDP brief, Stats Botswana indicated that the marginal increase is attributed to real value added of the water and electricity, transport and communications, and finance and business services sectors that rose by 6.0, 5.9 and 5.6 percent, respectively.
The data further show that all other industries recorded positive growths of more than 1.2 percent, with the exception of mining and manufacturing whose output declined by 13.8 and 0.2 percent, respectively.
The increase of 5.6 percent in the real value added of the finance and business services industry was mainly due to the rise in the value added of business services and real estate by 8.3 and 6.4 percent respectively.
Available data shows that after recording a decline of 1.7 percent in 2015, the domestic economy recovered strongly to register a positive growth of 4.3 percent in 2016.
At the time, the positive rebound was said to be largely due to the improvement in the Trade, Hotels & Restaurants and Transport & Communications sectors, which recorded positive growth rates of 13.5 percent and 5.6 percent, respectively.
On the other hand, domestic inflation remained low during 2016, with average inflation reaching a recent all-time low rate of 2.6 percent in August 2016; well below the lower band of the Bank of Botswana’s objective range of 3-6 percent.
In its Budget Strategy Paper released recently, the government indicated that a low and predictable inflation coupled with a conducive financial environment therefore eases savings mobilisation, productive investment and increases competitiveness of domestic producers.
“This is necessary for attaining a sustainable economic growth and creation of employment opportunities particularly during the period where growth is still below trend”, reads part of the paper.
