AfricaPress-Tanzania: TRADE in Zanzibar grew by 21.4 per cent from 394bn/- in 2019 to 478.b52bn/- last year, Trade and Industry Minister Ambassador Amina Salum Ali said here on Thursday.
The minister, moving her portfolio’s 2020/2021 budget estimates, told the House of Representatives that the trade volume involved imports and exports, with exports comprising mainly cloves, seaweeds and sardines.
She said the Indian Ocean’s semi-autonomous archipelago exported goods worth 131.65bn/- last year, an increase of over 126 per cent from 58.19bn/- exports in the previous year.
Zanzibar’s major cash crop – clove – accounted for 27.7 per cent of the total exports, generating 19.85bn/-.
Minister Amina attributed the lucrative clove business to increased production, with India and Singapore as the major buyers.
Zanzibar spent 346.88bn/- on imports last year, a slight increase from the previous year’s 335.84bn/-, with automobiles, electronics, clothes and foodstuffs dominating the imports.
The minister further told the House that the inter-state trade balance between Zanzibar and the mainland worsened due to decreasing business from the isles to the mainland.
“This (decreasing) trend is due to non-tariff barriers, especially permits to enter the Mainland market and product registration issues,” Minister Amina said in her 108-page budget speech.
She noted that Zanzibar’s sales to the Mainland dropped from 24.29bn/- in 2018 to 21.56bn/- last year as purchases decreased as well to 260.67bn/- from 269.67bn/- during the period.
The minister said the contribution of the industrial sector to the national economy maintained an upward trend, reaching 18.3 per cent last year from 17.8 per cent in 2018.
Despite some mainland market related challenges, the minister said industrial production in the 2019/2020 financial year became stronger.
She, however, decried a 250/- per litre livestock levy as a big blow to Fumba-based ADPL milk processing industry.
The factory production dwindled in 2019/2020 fiscal year to 1,757,982 from 8,028,883 litres produced in 2016/2017.
But, Mtoni-based Zanzibar Milling Corporation, which deals with wheat flour increased production, with 27,070.1 tonnes of flour and 6,690 tonnes of bran produced as of March 2020.
The minister further said production at Zanzibar Sugar Factory Limited at Mahonda suburb had been on the increase, thanks to positive response by sugarcane out growers who supply to the manufacturer, whose production hit a record of 6,674 tonnes of sugar last year.
The factory also produced 230,000 litres of Rectified Ethanol, which is an essential input in the manufacture of sanitizers.
