GABORONE, June 29 (Xinhua) -- Botswana's gross domestic product (GDP) recorded a slight increase of 0.5 percent in the first quarter of 2019, Statistics Botswana (SB) announced Saturday.
The GDP stood at 487,289 U.S. dollars, compared to 484,916 U.S. dollars during the previous quarter, said the southern African country's statistical agency in its latest report.
During the quarter under review, trade, hotels and restaurants remained the major contributor to GDP by 19.1 percent, followed by mining and quarrying, general government and finance and business services at 16.6, 14.5 and 14.3 percent respectively, the report said.
"The contribution of other sectors was below 6.7 percent with water and electricity being the lowest at 1.2 percent," Burton Mguni, Botswana's Statistician General, explained while presenting the latest figures in Francistown, Botswana's second largest city.
According to Mguni, the country's economy is showing a lot of potential in terms of growth and can do better.
However, most of the crucial and major contributors of "our economy such as manufacturing and the mining sectors are currently not performing to maximum due to economic volatility at the international scene," said the official.
Manufacturing real value added increased by 4.1 percent in the first quarter, compared to an increase of 4.6 percent registered in the same quarter of the previous year.
"We need to focus our attention on manufacturing if this country harbors any ambitions of reaching greater economic heights reached by great economies like China," Jeffrey Kieth, an independent economist, said in a telephone interview on Saturday.
