Africa-Press – Tanzania. THE country total imports have gone down by 12 per cent for the year to October driven by slowing down of purchasing of capital and intermediate goods.
The latest central bank report showed that the import of goods and services decreased to 9,137.6 million US dollars in the year ending October from 10,404.2 million US dollars.
According to the Bank of Tanzania (BoT) monthly economic review for November, the value of oil imports declined by 21.6 per cent to 1,391.5 million US dollars from 1,774.3 million US dollars driven by lower oil prices in the world market and accounted for 18.0 per cent of goods import.
On monthly basis, the import bill for goods decreased to 631.6 million US dollars from 768.6 million US dollars in October last year of which 95.5 million US dollars was oil imports.
In the meantime, the annual services payments amounted to 1,390.9 million US dollars in October this year lower than 1,737.6 million US dollars in the year ending October 2019 driven by travel payment, which dropped by 55.3 per cent to 287.7 million US dollars partly explained by travel restrictions adopted by many countries to limit the spread of Covid-19.
Similarly, on monthly basis, services payments declined by 41.7 per cent to 96.7 million US dollars in October this year.
The primary income account—which records income from compensation of employees and capital related transactions—narrowed to a deficit of 939.4 million US dollars from 981.0 million US dollars in last October, largely due to a decrease in income payment.
Likewise, on monthly basis, deficit in the primary income account narrowed, by 23.8 per cent to 66.3 million US dollars in October this year compared with the corresponding month last year.
The secondary income account, which captures unilateral current transfers, recorded a surplus of 326.7 million US dollars as compared to a surplus of 376.9 million US dollars recorded in the corresponding period last year.
On monthly basis, the secondary income account recorded a surplus of 7.9 million US dollars in October this year lower than a surplus of 36.7 million US dollars during the corresponding month last year mainly due to decrease in official transfers.
