Namibia's economy: mines and the sea, shared among more people

Why the World Bank reclassified Namibia

Namibia reached upper-middle-income status in the late 2000s, in the World Bank's account, and lost it in 2025. The bank gives two reasons: growth that stayed slow, and a population that turned out larger than planned for. The 2023 census by the Namibia Statistics Agency counted 3,022,401 people, about 15% more than the projections had assumed.

The figures underneath are uneven. The World Bank estimates the poverty rate at 28.3% in 2025, on the international line of $3 a person a day, and gives a Gini index of 59.1, measured in 2015. Unemployment was 33.4% of a labour force of 1,090,153 in 2018, and youth unemployment 38.4% in 2023, by the Wikipedia count. The bank ties the gaps in income, land and opportunity to the colonial and apartheid legacy.

Growth was 1.7% in 2025, the slowest since 2021, according to both the World Bank and the Statistics Agency. The bank put year-on-year growth at 2% in the first quarter of 2026 and projected 1.9% for 2026 as a whole. It estimated the fiscal deficit at 6.5% of GDP and public debt at 67.5% of GDP in 2025, and named low customs-union revenue, rising debt service and rigid spending as the limits on the budget.

What each sector contributed to output

Services make up the largest part of output. The Wikipedia article on the economy gives these shares of GDP for 2025.

Mining's share is small next to its weight in trade and tax. Its real value added fell 3.4% in 2024 and 9.4% in 2025, while services grew 5.2% and 4.2% in those years.

What the mines produce

Ores and minerals accounted for 46.0% of exports in 2024, and metal ores and uranium ore, at 31.5% of exports that year, produced the bulk of fiscal revenue. Article 100 of the constitution vests natural resources in the state where nobody else lawfully owns them.

Why Namibian diamonds are worth more per carat

The deposits are alluvial and yield gem-quality stones; Britannica writes that the diamonds were probably washed down from the Basotho highlands by the Orange River. In 2024 Namibian production averaged $417 a carat, nearly five times the world average, so that 2% of the world's diamonds by volume brought 10% of their value, the highest share on record. Production in 2022 reached 2.2 million carats and earned over N$14 billion in exports, including a record 1.725 million carats from Debmarine Namibia, and the recovery vessel Benguela Gem produced 480,000 carats.

The Wikipedia account credits the joint arrangement between the government and De Beers with building a taxable base and stronger state institutions around the mines. Diamonds have now lost their place as the main source of mining value to metal ores, mostly gold. The World Bank records diamond output falling under competition from lab-grown stones, and gold output falling while the two largest mines moved underground.

How much uranium comes from three mines

Namibia produced 7,333 tonnes of uranium in 2023, 12.2% of world production. Three mines account for it. Rössing began operating in 1976, Langer Heinrich in 2006 and Husab in 2014; in 2023 Husab produced 4,437 tonnes and Rössing 2,205, and Langer Heinrich restarted in 2024 after closing in 2018. A plan by Russia's state-owned Rosatom for in-situ leach mining in the east has stalled over concerns for the safety of groundwater.

What the offshore finds might change

Gas was found in the Kudu field off the mouth of the Orange River in 1974, and its extent is still being determined. The operator, BW Energy, expected a final investment decision in late 2026, and a linked Kudu power plant of up to 800 MW could meet 50 to 60% of Namibia's baseload demand.

Oil is newer. Shell and TotalEnergies announced offshore discoveries in 2022 estimated at 11 billion barrels, and several companies were drilling exploration wells in 2026. The government is aiming at first production in 2030, though no oil major has confirmed a final investment decision, and it has proposed a sovereign wealth fund to hold the revenue. The US International Trade Administration's country guide of February 2024 wrote that commercially viable finds would bring the government an unprecedented revenue windfall.

The other bet is hydrogen. In 2021 the government declared its aim to lead in green hydrogen and signed a partnership with Germany; a partnership with the European Union followed at COP27 in 2022. In May 2026 it replaced its Green Hydrogen Council with a Green Industries Council. The Namibian Ports Authority is working with the European Union and the Port of Rotterdam on export facilities for critical minerals and hydrogen-based fuels near Lüderitz.

How farming and fishing feed rural households

About half of the population depends on agriculture, largely subsistence farming, for its living, and Namibia still imports part of its food. Commercial farming is concentrated on cattle and Karakul sheep, and the Wikipedia article counts about 4,000 mostly white commercial farmers owning almost half of the arable land. Livestock farming's real value added fell 21.7% in 2025; the World Bank expected herds to recover from the drought of 2024 and the rains of 2025 to bring a strong harvest in 2026.

Land ownership was set by the colonial period, and a national land conference in 1991 opened the debate on redistribution; the constitution allows land to be bought only from willing sellers, which the Wikipedia history of the country names as one reason reform has been slow. Drought and bush encroachment have pushed farmers into other income. Clearing encroaching bush has produced a biomass trade: in 2022 Namibia exported over 280,000 tonnes of charcoal for $75 million, and an estimate from 2019 put employment in biomass at 10,000 workers. Wildlife conservancies give rural communities another source of income from the same land.

How the Benguela Current supports the fishing fleet

The cold Benguela Current feeds the fishing grounds off the coast. The catch was about 373,000 tonnes in 2023, against a peak of 637,000 tonnes in 2003. Pilchard, anchovy, hake and horse mackerel are the main species, with smaller catches of sole, squid, deep-sea crab, rock lobster and tuna. Stocks had fallen to dangerously low levels by independence; since then the government has pursued a conservative resource management policy with an aggressive enforcement campaign.

The quota system was also the subject of the Fishrot scandal. On 12 November 2019 WikiLeaks published documents from the Icelandic fishing company Samherji indicating payments of hundreds of millions of Icelandic krónur to Namibian politicians and officials to obtain quotas, and the ministers of fisheries and of justice resigned. The prosecution that followed is covered in Namibia: politics.

Why the economy runs through South Africa

Namibia shares a currency area and a customs union with South Africa. The Namibian dollar is pegged one to one to the South African rand within the Common Monetary Area. The Bank of Namibia was set up under Article 128 of the constitution, and its records show its first governor taking office on 16 July 1990. Britannica dates the Namibian dollar's launch to the mid-1990s.

The Southern African Customs Union, with Botswana, Lesotho, Eswatini and South Africa, charges no duties on goods produced in and moving between its members. Namibia is a net recipient of its revenue: it received N$27.1 billion from the pool in 2024. South Africa supplies most imports, 47% of the total in 2019 by the Wikipedia figure and 60% in the US International Trade Administration's guide of February 2024. The Statistics Agency recorded exports of N$125.6 billion and imports of N$150.5 billion in 2025.

How the ports and corridors carry trade

Walvis Bay is the main port, a deep-water harbour with an export processing zone and most of the fishing infrastructure. Several transport corridors pass through the country: the Trans-Kalahari Corridor, the Walvis Bay-Ndola-Lubumbashi Development Corridor, the Trans-Cunene and the Trans-Oranje, and the Tripoli-Cape Town Highway. The US International Trade Administration described the expanded port in 2024 as giving access to a Southern African market of more than 345 million people. There are plans to expand the port at Lüderitz with an oil and gas terminal.

The state runs much of the infrastructure. The government owns and runs companies such as TransNamib and NamPost, and the Wikipedia article notes that most of them need frequent financial assistance. NamWater is the only bulk water supplier, selling to the municipalities.

How the state invites capital and collects tax

The government's approach since independence, in the Wikipedia account, has been to court foreign investment and donor money. The Foreign Investment Act of 1990 guarantees investors against nationalisation and allows them to remit capital and profits, and Namibia signed the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in 1993. In January 2021 the government set up the Namibia Investment Promotion and Development Board in place of the Namibia Investment Centre, and in 2025 the board was moved into the Ministry of International Relations and Trade.

Banking is concentrated in five commercial banks authorised by the Bank of Namibia: Bank Windhoek, First National Bank, Nedbank, Standard Bank and the Small and Medium Enterprises Bank. Personal income tax is progressive, and the Wikipedia article compares it with South Africa's: above monthly incomes of N$58,754 the Namibian burden is lower, with effective rates levelling off at 30.8% against 37.4%. In the budget for 2024/25 the government doubled the income below which no tax is due, from N$50,000 to N$100,000 a year. Value-added tax applies to most goods and services, staples such as bread excepted.

Energy is where much of the World Bank's current lending goes, and the bank expected higher energy prices to hold growth back in 2026. Electricity comes mainly from thermal and hydroelectric stations, and in 2025 the World Bank-financed Transmission Expansion and Energy Storage Project became effective, for transmission lines and battery storage that let more renewable power onto the grid. Namibia launched a National Energy Compact in December 2025. If the Kudu gas plant is built, it could meet half or more of baseload demand on its own.

What tourism and manufacturing add

The World Travel and Tourism Council estimated that tourism contributed 14.5% of GDP and 18.2% of employment in 2008. Tourism fell by almost 90% during the COVID-19 pandemic and had recovered to 79% of its pre-pandemic level by 2024. Sport hunting accounted for 14% of tourism in 2000, worth $19.6 million. Where visitors go is the subject of Namibia: travel.

Manufacturing was 10% of GDP in 2025. Its larger firms include the meat processor MeatCo, Namib Mills, Bokomo, Namibia Breweries, which Heineken bought in 2023, Ohorongo Cement and the Tsumeb smelter run by Sinomine. The Wikipedia article lists the obstacles as a small domestic market, dependence on imported goods, little local capital, a dispersed population, a small skilled workforce, high relative wage rates and subsidised competition from South Africa.