The increased flow of export earnings from agriculture is good news to the stability of the shilling that in recent months experienced sharp fall against the US dollars. Despite the growing demand for the US dollars from the importer demand, local currency has of late continued to strengthen due to agricultural inflows. The NMB e-markets report shows that the USD demand from oil and telecom has exerted pressure on the shilling. According to the BoT rates, the shilling yesterday traded at 2,100.62/2,121.

 

The Bank of Tanzania (BoT) monthly economic review for July shows that the improvement was on account of increase in export value of coffee, cashew nut and tobacco. The value of cashew nut export increased significantly on account of increase in export volume and price while the increase in coffee export value was driven by export price as the volume declined. During the period under review, tobacco export earnings jumped to 358.7 million US dollars compared to 357.8 million US dollars of the corresponding period last year. Cashew nut export earnings increased to 252.8 million US dollars from 133.4 million US dollars while earnings from coffee exports rose to 148.8 million US dollars from 126.7 million US dollars. However, the performance of cotton, tea, cloves and sisal recorded sharp decline.
 

With the launch of the Tanzania Agriculture development Bank (TADB) recently and the forthcoming commodity exchange will contribute and boost agriculture productivity and export earnings. According to the BoT report, the value of goods and services export increased by 9.4 percent to 9,398.5 million US dollars compared to an increment of 6.5 percent to 8,885.8 million US dollars in the corresponding period 2014.

 

The development was largely explained by an increase in travel receipts (tourism), traditional exports and import of manufactured goods. The value of traditional exports was 907.7 million US dollars compared with 836.4 million US dollars in the corresponding period in 2014. The value of non-traditional exports amounted to 4,063.4 million US dollars, being 9 percent higher than the amount recorded in the year ending June 2014, with all other non-traditional exports increasing save for gold, other minerals and horticultural exports. The decline in the value of gold export was on account of a fall in both export prices in the world market and export volume. During the period under review, the contribution of export of manufactured goods was almost the same as that of gold to non-traditional exports.

Source : allafrica.com