The Botswana government announced on Monday that the country expects economic growth of 4% this year and 5.7% in the medium term.

In the annual budget speech to Parliament, the country's Finance Minister Madzme Peggy Serame said Botswana wanted to increase infrastructure spending for the year 2023-2024 in order to unlock constraints to economic growth in the country rich in diamonds.

The Government has also revised upwards its growth estimate for 2022, to 6.7%, compared to a previous forecast of 4.2%.

According to the minister, the review is due to better than expected results in the mining and non-mining sectors, including diamond trade, water and electricity.

In the almost 60 years since Botswana gained independence from the United Kingdom, it has gone from being a poor country to becoming an upper-middle-income country.

And over the past decade, it has been one of Africa's fastest growing economies.

Source: AfricaNews