Africa-Press – Tanzania. THE Bank of Tanzania (BoT) has said cross-border trade registered a surplus balance, thanks to more increase in exports than imports.
The trade surplus increased by 35.1 per cent to 1.526tri/- in three months to September from the value registered in a similar period last year.
Main contributors, according to the central bank, to the quarter three surplus were two zones – the Lake Zone and the Southern Highlands Zone.
“Cross-border trade for zones with borders registered a surplus balance, driven by faster increase in exports than imports,” BoT, latest Consolidated Zonal Economic Performance Report for Quarter ending September, showed.
The report showed that goods export went up by 28.8 per cent to 1.911tri/-, while imports rose by 8.9 per cent to 384.5bn/-.
The report showed that Northern and Lake Zones continued accounting for the largest shares of cross-border trade.
The Lake Zone registered a surplus of 77.5 per cent from 507.63bn/- in quarters three last year to 900.81bn/- in quarter three this year.
The Lake Zone trade improvement to register the surplus was due to an increase in the value of goods exported, particularly live cattle, goats and other animal products.
Other goods were unrefined gold, fish and fish products, cotton seed cakes, salt, foodstuffs and other consumer goods.
The second highly contributor to the cross-border trade surplus was the Northern Zone despite registering a trade balance deficit of 3.4 per cent to 615.25bn/- in three months to September this year compared to those of last year.
However, the Northern Zone registered a trade business surplus of 21.1 per cent to 508.25bn/- compared to Q2 and Q3.
The Northern Zone trade largely involved exports of raw agro-goods and plastic products.
The BoT report said the Southern Highlands Zone recorded a surplus of 8.8bn/- in Q3 up from a trade deficit of 22.9bn/-in Q2.
The Southern Highlands Zone, the surplus was driven by other exports, mainly building materials, clothing and plastic products.
However, the Southern Highlands Zone recorded a deficit of 16.1bn/- in Q3 last year “owing to increased exports of consumer goods and cement”.
Tanzania’s cross-border exports include unrefined gold, livestock and livestock products, cement, fertilisers, plastic products, seed cakes, fish fillets and consumable and manufactured goods.
Imports consist of mining equipment, industrial raw materials, iron sheets, electronics, soap and cosmetics, raw timber, medicaments, motor vehicles, electronics, woven fabrics and clothes, and cooking oil.
