THE shilling
depreciated by 0.12 percent against US dollar since January but the
trend was accelerated by the outbreak of coronavirus pandemic.
However, the level
of depreciation was insignificant to the economy and with oil price
plummeting in
world markets expect to lessen pressure on shilling.
The shilling,
according to Bank of Tanzania (BoT), data, depreciated from 2299/97 at
the opening of the year to 2302/76 yesterday.
Orbit Securities
Head of Research and Analytics Imani Muhingo said the shilling has been
falling for seven consecutive weeks despite some pocket appreciations.
"The shilling
started off [last] week well after ending the almost two month's
consecutive depreciation but in the end maintained weekly depreciation
for the seventh consecutive week," Mr Muhingo said.
For instance for
the week ended last Friday, the shilling lost 3 point in percentage in
points (pips) and closed the week at a weighted average exchange rate of
2,302/70 against the green back.
The Interbank
Foreign Exchange Market (IFEM) ended a four weeks of rising weekly
turnover following a 12.4 per cent decline in the total value of
transactions realized in the respective market.
The total value of
transactions during the week under review totaled 7.8million US dollars
compared to 8.9 million US dollars realized during the previous week.
Three weeks ago,
money market analysts had it that the shilling started to feel the pinch
of the coronavirus contagious in four straight weeks after losing 148
pips since mid-March.
"Global
consequences of the coronavirus are expected to keep stressing the
shilling despite a sufficient foreign reserve by the BoT," Orbit
Securities, largest stock brokerage firm said three weeks ago.
As of February, BoT
said in its latest Monthly Economic Review, the country's reserve
amounted to 5.5billion US dollars, enough to cover 6.4 months' worth of
imports.
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