ZANZIBAR exports earnings increased by 21.6 per cent to 489.94bn/- in the year ending February compared to 403.04bn/- of the corresponding period 2017, on improvement in exports of major commodities.
According to the Bank of Tanzania (BoT) monthly economic review for March major commodities that contributed to positive exports are namely as cloves, seaweeds and manufactured goods which altogether accounted for 96.8 per cent of total earnings from goods exports.
Earnings from export of cloves amounted to 114.4bn/- compared with 47.3bn/- in the year to February 2017, mainly on account of volume, which rose to 6,586 tonnes from 2,741 tonnes.
Seaweeds export earnings also improved to 7.04bn/- from 4.4bn/- following increase in the volume. Manufactured goods export earnings amounted to 10.5bn/- compared with 6.6bn/-.
Meanwhile, exports of fish and fish products rose greatly following large increase in exports of octopus, squids, shrimps, live lobster and crabs.
The current account recorded a surplus of 71.5bn/- in the year ending February compared with a surplus of 111.9bn/- in the corresponding period in 2017, owing to increase in imports of both goods and services.
The goods account recorded a deficit of 237.6bn/- compared with a deficit of 168.3bn/- in the year to February 2017, while services account recorded a surplus of 208.12bn/- compared with 98.9m/-. Imports of goods and services rose to 519.2bn/- from 353.5bn/- in the year ending February 2017, driven by both services payments and goods imports.
The increase in the cost of goods import occurred mostly in consumer and intermediate goods, which contributed 49.0 per cent and 39.3 percent to the increase, respectively.
Value of consumer goods imports mostly rice, sugar, wheat flour and cooking oil increased, while oil imports which account for 70.1 per cent and 43.7 per cent of the value of intermediate goods imports and total imports, respectively, increased to 121.2bn/- from 92.6bn/- on account of both volume and price effects.
