The Bank of Tanzania (BOT) Monthly Economic Review of March 2017 indicates that earnings from export of goods and services increased by 21.6% to USD 222.7 million in the year ending February 2018.
The improved performance follows the improvement in the major export commodities – cloves, seaweeds and manufactured goods—which altogether accounted for 96.8% of total earnings from Tanzania’s goods exports.
Earnings from the export of cloves amounted to USD 52.0 million compared with USD 21.5 million in the year to February 2017, mainly on account of volume, which rose to 6,586 tonnes from 2,741 tonnes.
Seaweeds exports earnings also improved to USD 3.2 million from USD 2.0 million following increase in the volume.
Manufactured goods export earnings amounted to USD 4.8 million compared with USD 3.0 million.
Meanwhile, exports of fish and fish products rose greatly following a large increase in exports of octopus, squids, shrimps, live lobster, and crabs.
Services Receipts
Services account improved by 32.1% to a surplus of USD 1,925.8 million during the year ending February 2018 from the surplus in the corresponding period in 2017.
The improvement was on account of an increase in services receipts coupled with a decline in services payments.
Services receipts amounted to USD 4,014.0 million and were 11.2% higher than in the year ending February 2017, largely following increase in travel and transport receipts.
Travel receipts rose to USD 2,405.1 million from USD 2,108.3 million on account of increase in the number of tourist arrivals, while transport receipts grew by 9.0% to USD 1,177.3 million on account of increase in transit goods to-and-from neighboring countries.