Uncertainty returns to haunt economic recovery :: Mmegi Online

After a year in which the economy began to recover from the record slump in 2020, the emergence of the Omicron variant and attendant lockdowns in the key markets for Botswana’s commodities has once again raised the unwelcome threat of uncertainty. Staff Writer, MBONGENI MGUNI reports

Diamonds, the country’s single most economically important commodity, are usually the first to hint that the country’s fortunes will go through a testing period. Being intricately linked to international markets such as the United States, China, India and diamond centres such as Brussels and Tel Aviv, the country’s diamonds act as a wet finger in the wind for the local economy.

The recessions of 2009 and 2015 were all first tasted by rough diamonds and eventually driven by them. Debswana, the country’s predominant producer of precious stones, has an expression for the instability global markets often bring to the local economy: Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous or VUCA.

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