{"id":212601,"date":"2025-11-05T08:26:49","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T06:26:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/southern-africa\/botswana\/botswana-central-bank-raises-policy-rate-to-3-5-percent-amid-downturn\/"},"modified":"2025-11-05T08:26:49","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T06:26:49","slug":"botswana-central-bank-raises-policy-rate-to-3-5-percent-amid-downturn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/southern-africa\/botswana\/botswana-central-bank-raises-policy-rate-to-3-5-percent-amid-downturn\/","title":{"rendered":"Botswana Central Bank Raises Policy Rate to 3.5 Percent Amid Downturn"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"1\"><em>TLDR<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> The Bank of Botswana has raised its benchmark policy rate sharply from 1.9% to 3.5%, seeking to narrow the gap between its key rate and the higher lending rates charged by commercial banks<\/li>\n<li> The move follows a second consecutive year of economic contraction, as weak global demand for diamonds continues to weigh on Botswana&#8217;s growth and liquidity<\/li>\n<li> Falling diamond exports have reduced foreign exchange inflows and tightened financial conditions, prompting banks to increase lending rates<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"57\">The Bank&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/allafrica.com\/stories\/202511040104.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read more on AllAfrica.com<\/a><br \/>\n<br \/>South Africa Today Africa \u2013 Southern Africa <a title=\"Botswana\" href=\"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/category\/southern-africa\/botswana\/\">Botswana<\/a> News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>TLDR The Bank of Botswana has raised its benchmark policy rate sharply from 1.9% to 3.5%, seeking to narrow the gap between its key rate and the higher lending rates charged by commercial banks The move follows a second consecutive year of economic contraction, as weak global demand for diamonds continues to weigh on Botswana&#8217;s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":212602,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.allafrica.com\/static\/images\/structure\/aa-logo-rgba-no-text-square.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2461],"tags":[258,256,7089,4718,2462,5934,34112,257,6720,6470,5234,7170,254],"class_list":["post-212601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-botswana","tag-africa","tag-africa-news","tag-bank","tag-botswana","tag-botswana-news","tag-central","tag-downturn","tag-news","tag-percent","tag-policy","tag-raises","tag-rate","tag-south-africa-today"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.allafrica.com\/static\/images\/structure\/aa-logo-rgba-no-text-square.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}