Economic Impact
Diamond mining activities have fueled much of the growth in Botswana's economy, allowing it to grow from one of the poorest countries in the world when it became independent in 1966 to a "middle income" nation, with $9,200 per capita income in 2004. Largely because of this, Botswana is considered by two major investment services to be the safest credit risk in Africa. Diamonds account for fully one third of the nation's GDP, over 90% of earnings from exports, and 50% of government revenues. Debswana is the largest non-government employer in the country, employing approximately 6,300 people, of whom over 93% are Batswana. Debswana is also the largest earner of foreign currency.
Read more about this topic: Debswana
Famous quotes containing the words economic and/or impact:
“... the living, vital truth of social and economic well-being will become a reality only through the zeal, courage, the non-compromising determination of intelligent minorities, and not through the mass.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“The question confronting the Church today is not any longer whether the man in the street can grasp a religious message, but how to employ the communications media so as to let him have the full impact of the Gospel message.”
—Pope John Paul II (b. 1920)