Africa-Press – Tanzania. THE value of mineral recovered grew by 5.3 per cent to 607.3 million US dollars in the quarter ending March this year compared to 576.7 million US dollars recorded in the corresponding period a year earlier.
According to the Bank of Tanzania (BoT) Consolidated Zonal Economic Performance Report for the quarter ending March, all zones with mineral recovery activities recorded growth, except Lake Zone in which both price and volume of gold declined.
The overall growth in value of minerals recovered was driven by coal, limestone and gypsum mostly due to volume increase following increased demand from manufacturing firms.
It is worth noting that, there were no diamonds recovered during the period because of scheduled maintenance of the mine which caused a temporary suspension of activities at Williamson Petra diamonds.
Thus the value of minerals from the Lake Zone declined to 445.1bn/- in the quarter ending March compared to 467.6bn/- registered in the corresponding period last year.
Despite the observed shrinkage in the value of minerals recovered in the Lake Zone, the zone continued to account for the largest share in the total value of mineral recovery, at 73.3 per cent, followed by the Southern Highlands zone at 14.7 per cent.
The value of minerals from the Northern zone increased to 17.4bn/- which is equivalent to an 18.2 per cent rise compared to 14.7bn/- registered in the corresponding period last year.
