Botswana - Economic sectors

The vast majority of Botswana's people practice subsistence farming and cattle raising. Because subsistence farm products and livestock are primarily raised for local consumption and are not sold in the formal market, the value of this production is not included in the gross domestic product or formal employment figures. Although agricultural employment is estimated at 15.6 percent of the formal labor force , the true figure is more like 80 percent of the informal labor force. The mining and service sectors (especially government, finance, transportation, and communication) account for most of

Communications
Country	Newspapers	Radios	TV Sets a	Cable subscribers a	Mobile Phones a	Fax Machines a	Personal Computers a	Internet Hosts b	Internet Users b
	1996	1997	1998	1998	1998	1998	1998	1999	1999
Botswana	27	156	20	N/A	15	2.3	25.5	6.00	12
United States	215	2,146	847	244.3	256	78.4	458.6	1,508.77	74,100
South Africa	32	317	125	N/A	56	3.5	47.4	33.36	1,820
Zimbabwe	19	93	30	N/A	4	N/A	9.0	1.19	20
a Data are from International Telecommunication Union, World Telecommunication Development Report 1999and are per 1,000 people.
b Data are from the Internet Software Consortium ( http://www.isc.org ) and are per 10,000 people.
SOURCE : World Bank. World Development Indicators 2000.

the nation's gross domestic product, but employ very few people. About 100,000 people are employed in the public sector , and about 245,000 in the private sector .

Botswana is one of the world's largest diamond producers. Debswana (an equal partnership of the South African company De Beers and the Botswanan government) controls most of the country's diamond industry. The Botswana government is currently trying reduce the country's dependence on diamonds by encouraging new manufacturing and service industries to locate in the country.