Zanzibar current account deficit narrows as exports surge

DAILY NEWS Reporter

ZANZIBAR current account deficit narrowed further in September this year as exports increased and imports declined.

The Central Bank said in a latest monthly economic review that the Isles current account registered a deficit of 6.4 million US dollars in September, this year, compared to 182.4 million US dollars recorded in the corresponding period in 2015 mainly due to an increase in exports by 49.4 per cent and imports decline by 26.4 per cent.
The review shows that the value of exports of goods and services during September 2016 rose to 240.5 million US dollars from 161 million US dollars recorded in a similar period in the year 2015.
Specifically, exports of goods hiked to 74.7 million US dollars from 29.9 million US dollars mostly on account of increased volume of cloves exports.
The value of cloves export increased to 49.5 million US dollars from 21.3 million US dollars as export volume surged from 2,000 tonnes to 6,200 tonnes owing to cyclical nature of the crop.
Services account balance recorded a surplus of 121.7 million US dollars in the year ending September 2016, significantly higher than a surplus of 76.5 million US dollars recorded during the corresponding period last year.
The improvement was primarily on account of increased receipts from travel services which mainly comprised of tourism relatedactivities.
The annual import bill for both goods and services fell to 263.4 million US dollars in September 2016 from 357.8 million US dollars in the corresponding period in 2015.
Goods imports amounted to 219.4 million US dollars down from 303.3 million US dollars. Almost all categories of imports declined.