State of economic crunch to be revealed

Statistics Botswana will release the fourth quarter GDP figures next week, which will in turn show the full year economic performance.

Ahead of the official figures, forecasts by different authorities indicate the economy will be shown to have contracted by between 7.7 percent and 8.9 percent in 2020. Should the March 31 figures indicate an 8.9 percent fall, the economy will have recorded its worst contraction in history on an annual basis, higher than the -7.7 percent seen in 2009 during the global recession.