Botswana Insight

  UV Botswana (Pty) Ltd is a 100% Botswana owned Company, which was established in 2009, to design and manufacture robust, reliable, and cost effective underground utility vehicles for the mining and quarrying industry. Set up in Francistown, in the North East of the country, the Company is ideally situated geographically, to service the Southern and Central African region. By setting up in Botswana, the Company has reaped the benefits of working with a stable currency, labour force and a Government committed to good governance. Initially the Company produced a low profile 4 tonne range of vehicles, specifically designed for the low profile mines in the region.  This range of vehicles have proven themselves to be the market leader in their class, and over the interim years, the Company has been able to supply a large population of them to mines throughout the region, principally to South Africa and Zimbabwe. Using experience gained on the 4 tonne range, the Company has designe...

Botswana's Economic Success   How, against a background of poor performance, has Botswana performed better economically than any other country in the world in the last 35 years? How did it achieve an annual rate of growth of 7.7% between 1965 and 1998? This chapter looks at Botswana’s exceptional growth and the growth of the surrounding countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Botswana did not start out with favourable conditions at independence. It is predominantly tropical and landlocked both of which are often seen as disadvantages by economists. Diamonds have been important for growth, but in other countries natural resource abundance has caused civil war. Botswana’s good economic policies, and therefore its economic success, reflect its institutions or more particularly its institutions of private property. These protect the property rights of actual and potential investors, provide political stability, and ensure that the political elites are constrained by the political system. Ther...