Tanzania’s first quarter GDP growth hit 7.5 pc

Gross Domestic Product grew by 7.5 per cent during the first quarter of this year thanks to rapidly growing agriculture, transport and communication sectors among others.

National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Director of Economics Statistics Directorate Morrice Oyuke

National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Director of Economics Statistics Directorate Morrice Oyuke said yesterday the growth was more than 7.4 per cent recorded last year during a similar period.

“Agriculture and fisheries grew at 1.4 per cent against 0.4 per cent last year,” said Mr Oyuke. He noted that transport and communications also performed well partly because of Dar es Salaam commuter train services popularly known as train ya Mwakyembe in respect to Transport Minister, Dr Harrison Mwakyembe who introduced it last October.

Manufacturing and construction sectors also grew dramatically by over 2 per cent from 5.7 per cent last year to 8.6 per cent between January and March this year. Oyuke said mining took a dive by registering growth of 4.7 per cent from an all time high of 23.8 per cent last season due to falling world market prices.

“But also during the period, Tulawaka gold mine was not operating because the mineral development agreement licence given to Barrick had expired,” Oyuke noted.

He said taking into consideration prevailing market forces, it is likely that the second, third and fourth quarters will produce similar results hence forecasting an over 7 per cent growth this year. The NBS quarterly report shows that GDP increased from 4.22trn/- last year to 4.5trn/- during the year under review.