Zanzibar export earnings increase by 26.9 per cent

What you need to know:

The Bank of Tanzania (BoT) Monthly Economic Review (MER)of February 2018 indicates that earnings increased to $225.9 million during the year ending January 2018 compared to $178 million earned during the same period last year.

Dar es Salaam. Zanzibar’s earnings from exports of goods and services have increased by 26.9 per cent in the year ending January 2018, thanks to an improvement in the major exports of cloves and seaweeds.

The Bank of Tanzania (BoT) Monthly Economic Review (MER)of February 2018 indicates that earnings increased to $225.9 million during the year ending January 2018 compared to $178 million earned during the same period last year.

Cloves and seaweed recorded the increase of 87.6 per cent and 25.7 per cent of all goods and services in Zanzibar during the period. The BoT review shows that the amount of clove exports nearly doubled to 7,002 tonnes during the year ending January 2018 from 3,155 tonnes in 2017.

Meanwhile, clove earnings also more than doubled to $55.3 million in January 2018 from $24.9 million a year ago.

However, the price for cloves per tonne slightly decreased from $7,907.7 in January 2017 to $7,904.3 as recorded in the same period this year. For seaweed, exports amounted to 7,413.2 tonnes with the value of $2.7 million this year against 5,175.7 tonnes valued at $2.4 million in the year ending January 2017. Again, prices for seaweed per tonne decreased by 20.4 per cent to $361.5 in January 2018 from $454.1 as recorded a year ago. Manufactured goods, which included manufactured re-exports, also showed a significant increase to $6.1 million from $1.5 million as recorded in January 2017.

The BoT review also shows that travel receipts grew by 11.8 per cent to $2.37 million owing to an increase in the number of tourist arrivals.

Transport rose by 8.9 per cent to $1.16 million on account of increase in transit goods to and from neighbouring countries.