Minerals export earnings fall 8 pc

Daily News Reporter

THE minerals export earnings has gone down by slightly over 8.0 per cent for the year ended October, chiefly due to a falling prices and weak demand.

The central bank said in its latest report shows that the minerals export went down from 1.54 billion US dollars in October, last year to 1.41 billion US dollars in October 2015.
The Bank of Tanzania (BoT), showed in the statement that prices fell for all minerals including gold, diamond and tanzanite. “Gold exports declined during the year, largely due a fall in price following weak demand in the world market,” BoT said.
The gold foreign earnings slumped 6.8 per cent from 1.41 bilion US dollars to 1.31 billion US dollars for the year ended October. Diamond also registered a negative revenue increase of 19.2 per cent tumbling from 60.3milion US dollars to 48.7million US dollars.
Other minerals, tanzanite, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, copper, silver and other precious stones, registered a heavy fall of almost 28 per cent from 77.4million US dollars to 55.9million US dollars.
On month-to-month earnings all sectors registered a plus increase in October compared to September.
Other mineral exports registered a raise of 52 per cent to 8.9million US dollars in a single month, while gold climbed by 5.7 per cent to 136.6 million US dollars.
Generally for the year ended October, non-traditional exports amounted to 4.12billion US dollars compared to 3.77 bilion US dollars registered same period last year.
“The increase was on account of improvement in manufactured goods export and re-exports to neighbouring countries,” BoT said.