What Botswana buys, and from whom.
Botswana imported USD 3.4bn of manufactured and processed goods in 2024, down 14 per cent on 2022. These are its twenty largest source countries. 1 of them ship enough, across enough product lines, to have a lane page of their own.
Trade year 2024, compared with 2022.
The twenty countries Botswana imports most from.
A lane page is written where the source ships USD 1bn or more a year across at least 50 product lines worth USD 1m each. For what Botswana is best placed to make itself, see Made here: Botswana.
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1
South Africa
Share of Botswana's imports82 per centChangedown 3 per cent on 2022USD 2.8bnin 2024 -
2
China
Share of Botswana's imports7 per centChangeup 8 per cent on 2022Lane pageunder the lane thresholdUSD 239min 2024 -
3
Germany
Share of Botswana's imports2 per centChangedown 4 per cent on 2022Lane pageunder the lane thresholdUSD 67min 2024 -
4
Namibia
Share of Botswana's imports1 per centChangeup 22 per cent on 2022Lane pageunder the lane thresholdUSD 46min 2024 -
5
India
Share of Botswana's imports1 per centChangedown 54 per cent on 2022Lane pageunder the lane thresholdUSD 41min 2024 -
6
Zambia
Share of Botswana's imports1 per centChangeup 47 per cent on 2022Lane pageunder the lane thresholdUSD 40min 2024 -
7
United States
Share of Botswana's imports1 per centChangedown 68 per cent on 2022Lane pageunder the lane thresholdUSD 21min 2024 -
8
Australia
Share of Botswana's imports1 per centChangedown 34 per cent on 2022Lane pageunder the lane thresholdUSD 19min 2024 -
9
Zimbabwe
Share of Botswana's imports1 per centChangeup 10 per cent on 2022Lane pageunder the lane thresholdUSD 17min 2024 -
10
Japan
Share of Botswana's importsunder 1 per centChangedown 78 per cent on 2022Lane pageunder the lane thresholdUSD 13min 2024 -
11
Belgium
Share of Botswana's importsunder 1 per centChangedown 29 per cent on 2022Lane pageunder the lane thresholdUSD 9min 2024 -
12
United Kingdom
Share of Botswana's importsunder 1 per centChangedown 74 per cent on 2022Lane pageunder the lane thresholdUSD 9min 2024 -
13
France
Share of Botswana's importsunder 1 per centChangedown 28 per cent on 2022Lane pageunder the lane thresholdUSD 9min 2024 -
14
Italy
Share of Botswana's importsunder 1 per centChangedown 49 per cent on 2022Lane pageunder the lane thresholdUSD 7min 2024 -
15
Netherlands
Share of Botswana's importsunder 1 per centChangedown 68 per cent on 2022Lane pageunder the lane thresholdUSD 6min 2024 -
16
Spain
Share of Botswana's importsunder 1 per centChangedown 27 per cent on 2022Lane pageunder the lane thresholdUSD 4min 2024 -
17
Canada
Share of Botswana's importsunder 1 per centChangedown 39 per cent on 2022Lane pageunder the lane thresholdUSD 4min 2024 -
18
Switzerland
Share of Botswana's importsunder 1 per centChangedown 73 per cent on 2022Lane pageunder the lane thresholdUSD 4min 2024 -
19
Turkey
Share of Botswana's importsunder 1 per centChangedown 65 per cent on 2022Lane pageunder the lane thresholdUSD 4min 2024 -
20
Cyprus
Share of Botswana's importsunder 1 per centChangeup 127 per cent on 2022Lane pageunder the lane thresholdUSD 4min 2024
What crossed the border, what it was worth, and what it weighed.
Every figure on this page is from CEPII's BACI file, which reconciles what each pair of countries reports to the UN about the same shipment. Trade year 2024, compared with 2022. A line is one six-digit customs heading (HS 2022). Values are in US dollars at the border; growth is in current dollars, so part of any change is price, not volume.
Unit value. Unit values are customs values per tonne, declared at the border, not product prices. It is the value of a line divided by its declared weight, so it mixes grades, models and qualities under one heading. It is shown only where the weight is recorded, at least three source countries of USD 100k or more ship the line to Botswana with a weight, and the figure sits within a factor of five of the middle of those sources. Outside that band it is treated as a recording problem and left out.
Share is South Africa's part of everything Botswana imported in that line, from every source. Sources counts the countries that shipped any of it.
Scope. Manufactured and processed goods, customs chapters 16 to 96, without ores, fuels, precious metals, scrap, raw farm output and one-off capital and defence purchases: the same rule as the Made here pages.
A record of trade, not a shopping list.
What this record does not say: what sells at retail, what margin a trade leaves, how crowded the marketplaces are, or how much of a flow is re-exported through entrepots such as Hong Kong and Singapore.
A large line is not proof of an opening, and a lower unit value from another country is not proof the goods are the same. Tariffs, standards, freight, payment terms, lead times and the plain fact that a supplier is good at it are all invisible here. Nothing on this page is a forecast, a recommendation or a promise. No supplier company is named, because the record holds none.
Source: CEPII BACI, HS22, version 202601. Edition of 2026-11-03.