Africa-Press – Tanzania. TANZANIA economic growth led the Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries in this year’s quarter one, thanks to accommodative monetary stance taken by the government to counter the effects of Coronavirus pandemic.
The country Gross Domestic Product (GDP) though slightly went down to 4.9 per cent in first three months (January to March) from 5.9 per cent in similar period last year, still Tanzania was leading other SADC countries in terms of growth during the said period.
Tanzania was closely followed by South Africa, the second largest economy in Africa, which grew by 4.6 per cent from negative 1.8 posted last year quarter one.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), in average the SADC region grew down by negative 1.0 per cent from negative 0.3 per cent.
NBS, Acting Director of Economic Statistics, Daniel Masolwa said yesterday that Tanzania stellar performance was pushed up mainly by mining and quarrying 10.2 per cent, ICT 9.1 per cent as well as transport and storage 9.0 per cent.
“SADC region also experienced economic disruptions as a result of Covid-19 pandemic since its eruption in 2019,” Mr Masolwa told reporters at a press conference in Dodoma.
Other sectors that contributed to the country’s GDP growth were water supply (9.0 per cent), professional scientific and technical services (7.8 per cent), administrative support services (7.4 per cent) and electricity (7.2 per cent).
Further, NBS report showed the value of GDP at constant prices in quarter one increased to 33.2tri/- from 31.7tri/- in the corresponding quarter last year.
“The annual economic growth is projected to grow at 5.7 per cent in this year,” Mr Masolwa said.
NBS also noted that the largest share of contribution to GDP in the first quarter was from the tertiary—market—activities accounting for 40.1 per cent, primary activities 37.1 per cent and secondary activities with the least share of 22.7 per cent.
Nevertheless, Mr Masolwa said while Tanzania registered a positive growth, the average economic performance for selected countries in the SADC region ‘experienced a deeper negative growth in the first quarter of 2021.’
In SADC bloc, apart from South Africa and Tanzania, only Mozambique and Botswana registered a positive GDP growth at 0.1 and 0.7 per cent respectively.
For the East Africa Community (EAC), NBS report showed that Uganda topped the GDP growth rate in the region at 6.2 per cent compared to 0.7 in similar quarter last year, followed at a distance by Tanzania. Rwanda came third as it grew down at 3.5 per cent compared to 3.7 per cent recorded last year.
However, Kenya, Burundi, and South Sudan were yet to release their quarterly report as per yesterday.
The Sub Saharan Africa economy recorded the largest annual negative growth of 1.9 per cent last year and was projected to recover from Covid-19 effects and grow at 3.4 per cent in this year.
Tourism-reliant economies were the most affected last year and prevalence of Covid-19 will continue to hit hard these economies.
“Lockdown measure introduced in the source markets resulted in affecting host markets that limited the flow of tourists, and consequently affecting host economies,” NBS report showed.
