BoB wary as Omicron shakes global economies

When the COVID-19 pandemic first reached Botswana last March, the central bank responded through several interventions, including lowering the prudential capital adequacy ratio for banks, reducing banks’ cost of accessing overnight funding, raising the limits on mobile money transactions, among others. The BoB also cut interest rates to a record low of 3.75 percent in order to support economic recovery.

The United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union are among numerous countries to have imposed travel bans on Botswana in the wake of the Omicron variant’s discovery, posing a threat to the key sectors of mining and tourism.