Reports in the African media, quoting the Monthly Digest report released by Statistics Botswana state that the country had a trade surplus of P550 mn on during February 2016, the latest month for which the data is available.

The reports state that total exports in the month were valued at P6.4 billion which was higher than the total imports of P5.85 billion. Total exports were up 20.9% over the igure for February 2015, the report said.

Diamonds account for about 41% of imports and 85% of exports, it was reported. The imports were a result of the 2011 agreement between De Beers and the government under which diamonds mined by the company outside of Botswana are brought here for aggregation and sale.

Total imports during Feb were down 12.7% to P5.85 billion compared to the P6.7 billion a year ago on account of lower value of diamonds imported from countries like Canada, Namibia and South Africa.