Gold exports continue to fall

Tanzania’s gold exports went down further during the year to January 2015. PHOTO | FILE 

By Alawi Masare,The Citizen Reporter

In Summary

• According to the Bank of Tanzania’s Monthly Economic Review, gold exports dropped from $1.64 billion in the year ending January 2014 to $1.31 billion in the year to January 2015

Dar es Salaam. The value of Tanzanian gold exports continued to decline as tourism earnings exceeded the $2 billion mark in the year ending January 2015.

According to the Bank of Tanzania (BoT), gold exports dropped from $1.64 billion in the year ending January 2014 to $1.31 billion in the year to January 2015 as both export volume and price in the world market dropped.

At the same time, earnings of the country’s leading foreign exchange earner, tourism, increased from $1.89 billion to $2.05 billion.

“Gold and manufactured goods continue to account for the largest share of total non-traditional exports,” stated the February Monthly Economic Review in part.

In the period, the value of exports of goods and services was $8.85 million, being 3.8 per cent higher than the amount recorded in the corresponding period in 2014.

Manufactured goods which include edible oil, textile apparels, plastic goods, fertilizer and paper products also increased from $1.05 billion to $1.27 billion, the February Monthly Economic Review shows. The value of traditional exports declined by 5.6 per cent to $841.1 million from the amount recorded in the preceding year.

With the exception of cashew nuts, the value of all traditional exports which include coffee, tea, tobacco, cotton, cloves and sisal declined driven by a decrease in export volumes and unit price that was mainly influenced by the world market.

Cashew nuts export registered an annual growth of about 62 per cent to $257.5 million.

On the other hand, the value of goods import decreased by 3.0 per cent to $10.82 billion from the corresponding period in 2014 following a decrease in imports of intermediate goods, notably oil and fertilizers.

The development sent a positive note to the current account deficit which narrowed by 4.7 per cent to $4.62 billion.