Botswana, a Southern African country, has determined that it is necessary to provide additional resources and information to the people of their region. Botswana is a poor country, but one of its most established trade industries is that of the diamond industry. The country provides a range of exports around the globe in diamonds. Diamonds are the largest and main export of the country.
Government Sees Time for Changes
The government of Botswana has taken steps to insure a range of important infrastructure and investment projects are successful within its borders. The country, one of the poorer countries in Africa, is very popular for its diamonds, but not for the relatively poor existence, many people lead. The government is working to change this situation through the implementation of a variety of services.
The company plans to work on reshaping its economy through specialized hubs. These hubs will come into being for various industries including the diamond industry, the educational industry, the health industry, the transport industry as well as the medical industry.
The government made a few announcements of these hubs on May 12th. The President of the country, Seretse Khama, had this to say about the incentives to bring in these programs.
“For the nation to derive maximum benefit from these important projects and initiatives, government and the private sector must work together to achieve a solid public private partnership and increased highly effective collaboration. These initiatives require massive injection of skills and capital by the private sector and I urge the Botswana business sector to position itself to take part in these initiatives and thereby derive maximum advantages from them.”
He went on to talk about how important these hubs will be. The goals of each will be to provide enough resources to help establish jobs within each sector, skills, technology as well as work to put more of a modern, developed world spin on the country’s economy. The goal here is to work to diversify the country enough so that the economy of it can grow.
D. N. Seretse, who is the Minister of Defense, Justice and Security, also attended the press meeting. He continued with, “While diamonds have served us very well, it becomes clearer by the day that we need alternative sources of revenue to fund our development. Diversification within the mining industry and the growth of new engines of growth such as tourism and agriculture are therefore crucial as we move forward.”
Diamonds in Botswana
One area of Botswana, Jwaneng, features the largest diamond mine located within it. This is one of the richest sources of quality diamonds in the world. Because of these high quality resources, the demand for diamonds from Botswana is generally high and has been for some time. This mine is unique not only in what it provides to the world, but also in the way that someone discovered it. The mine was unknown to anyone for centuries, until it was observed that termites, in their search for water and food, came up to the surface with very tiny grains of diamond.
Botswana is very dependent on the diamond mines located within it. Most of the people that work in the country work in mining either for diamonds or for coal, another rich resource the country holds. The demand for diamonds is highly important to the country so much so that the entire economy would falter should any type of rapid decline in the rates of interest or prices for the diamonds occurred. This export is significant so much so that the industry has been closely under guard for many years.
Jwaneng’s people are incredibly dependent on the diamond trade. Those that work in the city do so by working in the mines to extract diamonds, which the workers extract themselves, through physical labor. Others work to maintain the roads that lead to and from the mines.
Pulling it Together
While the diamond sector in the country of Botswana, and especially in cities like Jwaneng’s is dependent on foreign interest, the President’s plan to diversify the country’s economy could help create more stability in a growing country. By providing such resources to the country, through the bringing together of the government programs with the private sector businesses, the hope is to establish a better economy less dependent on the diamond sector.
The diamond sector in Botswana is likely to continue growing and developing over time. There is no limit to the demand and resources available as of yet in these mines. Nevertheless, while the movement of the government is pushing forward, it is an ideal time for diversification to happen to enable the country’s economy to grow beyond that of the diamond sector, therefore providing long-term growth opportunities and increasing the stability of the country as a whole.
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