17 Sep 2015

The performance of the agricultural sector in the year 2013 was adversely affected by unfavourable climatic conditions and endemic animal diseases like Foot and Mouth Disease, says manager -communications, documentation and dissemination at Statistics Botswana Ms Lillian Setimela. 

Addressing media on Consumer Price Index, Ms Setimela said cattle population fell from 2.25 million in 2012 to 2.08 million in 2013 while goat population dropped from 1.65 million in 2012 to 1.5 million in 2013. 

The population of sheep fell from 294 000 to 274 000 in 2012 and 2013 respectively. She noted that sorghum production, which is predominant crop in the commercial sector, fell from 24 000 metric tonnes in 2012 to 10 200 metric tonnes in 2013 while maize, which remains the predominant crop in the traditional sector, dropped from 7 600 metric tonnes to 3 800 metric tonnes in the same years. 

Principal statistician - national accounts and prices at Statistics Botswana, Ms Ketso Makhumalo said the national inflation rate for August 2015 stood at 3.0 per cent, which represents a drop of 0.1 per centage point over the July rate of 3.1 per cent.  Ms Makhumalo said the annual inflation in August 2015 was lower than the 4.6 per cent recorded during the same month in 2014. 

She said that the decline in the annual inflation rate between August 2014 and August 2015 was due to the decrease in prices of major commodities in the transport group, especially fuel which was adjusted downward in December 2014 and February 2015. 

She said the inflation rates for urban and rural villages were 3.0 per cent and 3.4 per cent in August 2015 compared to 4.5 per cent and 5.0 per cent respectively realised in the same month in 2014. 

She added that the annualised inflation rate for cities and towns recorded 2.8 per cent in August 2015 as opposed to 4.5 per cent in August 2014. Ms Makhumalo said in August 2015, the domestic tradable inflation rate was 2.9 per cent while the imported tradable inflation rate was 0.6 per cent. Ends