The Bank of Tanzania (BOT) published its Monthly Economic Review of March 2017, showing that the annual export value of Tanzanian goods and services amounted to USD 9,174.4 million in the year ending February 2017 compared with USD 8,978.1 million in the year ending February 2016, representing and increase of +2.1%.
Noticeable improvements were recorded in most of the traditional and non-traditional exports, particularly gold and tourism receipts.
Total exports of tourism reached USD 2,131.8 million in the year ending February 2017 compared to USD 2,046.9 million in the year ending February 2016, representing and increase of +4.1% in revenues, thanks to the increase in the number of tourist arrivals, BOT indicates.
Total exports of gold reached USD 1,468.1 million in the year ending February 2017 compared to USD 1,168.6 million in the year ending February 2016, representing and increase of +25.6% in revenues, due to recovery in price in the world market and increase in volume, BOT explains.
The overall value of traditional exports rose by 17.8% to USD 896.7 million in the year ending February 2017 from the year February 2016.
Much of the improvement came from export of cashew nuts which reached USD 343.6 million in in the year ending February 2017 compared to USD 184.9 million in the year ending February 2016, representing and increase of +85.8% in revenues
Earnings from the other main traditional export crops—coffee, sisal, tea and cloves—declined at varying degrees.
Notably, the value of cashew nuts increased on account of both volume and price, whilst cotton and tobacco exports improved as a result of price changes.
By contrast, export value of cloves decreased owing to a fall in both price and volume, while sisal and tea declined on account of a fall in volume as prices increased.
Coffee recorded low export value due to a decline in price as volume increased.
The price movements of most of the traditional exports were consistent with world market prices of commodities.
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