National economy remains stable

HILDA MHAGAMA

AS the overall economic situation in the country remains stable with signs of improving in 2017, the agriculture sector which contributes 24.7 per cent in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has remained stagnant.

The current economic status ending today and six months projection for next year was issued in Dar es Salaam yesterday by the Minister for Finance and Planning, Dr Philip Mpango.

“Since agriculture has not recorded good performance, we must therefore think on how to improve the sector,” he said. According to Dr Mpango, the agriculture sector grew by 2.7 per cent from July to September 2015 while in the same period in 2016 the sector grew by only 0.3 per cent.

“From this record, we can all see why there is need to make improvement in the sector,” said Dr Mpango. Dr Mpango said the government and the public at large need to work together to improve the sector and that positive changes are inevitable in the area.

“We need to change the way of practising agriculture, it is high time we think of using modern means of agriculture including minimising the uses of the hand hoe and applying irrigation farming technology,” said Dr Mpango.

On the state of economy, Dr Mpango said the nation’s economy is stable and that people should change their mindsets against economic growth. He said there are many indications that are used to measure the economic growth such as financial services, agriculture production, fishing activities, mining, industrial development and many others.

According to Dr Mpango, the indicators have proved that the nation’s economy is strong and stable. He said the GDP shows that Tanzania economy is growing at an acceptable and satisfactory pace and that ‘wananchi’ should not worry of the economic situation.

Tanzania remains to be among the Sub-Saharan countries that its economy grew at a higher speed.

“Another indicator is the rate of inflation that measures the price of goods and services consumed by households in the country where it declined from 6.5 per cent in January 2016 to 5.5 per cent in June 2016 and a further decrease to 4.5 per cent in September and 4.8 in November,” he explained.

Dr Mpango said expectations for the 2017 were to remain with single digit inflation rate. However, shortage of food that has emerged in some countries in the southern African regions could trigger inflation pressures in the near future.

On the banking sector, Dr Mpango said the financial assessment for local banks shows most of them are stable. “Most of our banks are stable and have adequate capital and liquidity,” he said.

However, Dr Mpango revealed that some banks such as TIB Development Bank and CRDB suffered loss during the July -September 2016.

He added that the Bank of Tanzania (BoT) took over the management of Twiga Bancorp and assured all clients that their deposited cash is safe.

Moreover, the minister said on foreign sector and exchange reserves up to November 2016, current account deficit decreased for 52.5 per cent and reached 1,904.2 USD from 4,008.3 during the same period in 2015.