Z’bar current account deficit narrows on improved tourism receipts, cloves exports

DAILY NEWS Reporter

ZANZIBAR current account deficit has continued to narrow on account of increased receipts from tourism related activities and cloves exports.

The Bank of Tanzania (BoT) monthly economic review for October last year shows that services account balance recorded a surplus of 123.9 million US dollars, from a surplus of 73.7 million US dollars of the corresponding period last year due to increased receipts from tourism related activities.

Similarly, the value of cloves export increased to 54 million US dollars from 19.7 million US dollars on account of increased export volume from 1,907.2 tonnes in 2015 to 6,817 tonnes in 2016, owing to cyclical nature of the crop.

Specifically, exports of goods reached 84.5 million US dollars from 23.4 million US dollars on account of increased volume and value of cloves export. Current account balance narrowed to a deficit of 9.2 million US dollars from a deficit of USD 186.3 million recorded in the corresponding period in 2015.

This improvement was mainly on account of an increase in exports of goods and services by 65.8 percent, coupled with an overall decline in imports of goods and services by 20.4 percent.

Value of exports of goods and services during the year ending October 2016 rose to 251.8 million US dollars from 151.9 million US dollars recorded in a similar period in 2015.

However, average export price of cloves fell by 23.3 percent from 10,324.8 US dollars per tonne to 7,921.8 US dollars per tonne in the reporting period.

During the period under review, imports of goods and services declined to 278.3 million US dollars from 349.6 million US dollars recorded in the corresponding period in 2015. Goods imports amounted to 234.9 million US dollars down from 294.9 million US dollars recorded in the corresponding period in 2015, mainly due to decline in imports of consumer goods, industrial raw materials and intermediate goods.