Tanzania: Cloves, Seaweeds Exports Decline, Earnings Down

ZANZIBAR export earnings has declined by 20.3 per cent to 189.6 million US dollars in the year ending June from 238 million US dollars registered in the corresponding period 2018, due to fall of volume and value of cloves and seaweeds.

The Bank of Tanzania (BoT), monthly economic review for July states that the decline of volume of

cloves is attributed to the cyclical nature of crop, an inherent nature of agriculture that is few years of good returns followed by years of negative returns.

During the referred period, the value of cloves dropped by 97.9 per cent to 1,224 million US dollars from 59,178.6 million US dollars.

The volume of cloves also declined by 97.6 per cent to 0.2 million US dollars in the year ending June compared to 0.5 million US dollars in the corresponding period.

Furthermore, the unit price per tonne of cloves dropped by 14.3 per cent to 6,800 US dollars in the period under review compared to 7,939.2 US dollars in the similar period last year.

The value of seaweeds registered a decline by 12.2 per cent in the reference period to 4,032.8 million US dollars from 4,591 million US dollars of the corresponding period 2018.

Moreover, the volume of seaweeds recorded 27.8 per cent decline to 8.7 million tonnes from 12.0 million tonnes registered in the similar period last year.

During the year ending June, current account balance was a deficit of 66.1 million US dollars compared to a surplus of 13.8 million US dollars in similar period 2018, owing to increase in import of goods and services coupled with a decline in goods exports.

In contrast, service receipts rose primarily due to higher income from operations linked to tourism activities.