AfricaPress-Tanzania: THE Zanzibar current account deficit has increased to 97.1 million US dollars in the period ending December last year from 70.3 million US dollars registered during the corresponding period in 2019.
This is largely attributed to increase in imports of goods and services and decrease in services receipts.
According to the Bank of Tanzania (BoT) monthly economic review for January, the exports of goods and services decreased to 199.8 million US dollars from 220.9 million US dollars in the year ending December 2019, occasioned by inadequate performance in services receipts, particular from tourism related activities.
During the period under review, clove exports earnings rose by about three-fold to 15.6 million US dollars from 5.3 million US dollars earned in the year ending December 2019.
On month-to-month basis, exports amounted to 12.4 million US dollars in December last year in comparison to 0.5 million US dollars in November last year and 3.2 million US dollars in December 2019, largely driven by exports of manufactured goods and other exports.
The value of imports of goods and services amounted to 426.4 million US dollars in the year ending December last year from 354.7 million US dollars in the corresponding period in 2019.
This development was associated with increase in imports of capital and consumer goods.
Most of the imported capital goods were machinery, transport equipment, building and construction materials such as ceramic products, iron bars and iron sheets.
On month-to-month basis, imports amounted to 21.0 million US dollars compared to 27.4 million US dollars in December 2019 and to 10.5 million US dollars in November last year.
The bulk of imports in December last year comprised machinery equipment and other consumer goods, which accounted for 50.3 per cent of imports compared to 47.7 per cent in the preceding month and 50.0 per cent in December 2019.
