The country's inflation rate was one of the best in both East African Community and Southern African Development Community blocs during the past year.
Bank of Tanzania’s latest Quarterly Economic Bulletin released last Friday shows that headline inflation in SADC which has 16 countries increased significantly to 64.1 percent during the year ending June 2020 from 13.7 percent in the corresponding period of 2019.
The BoT report stated that headline inflation for Tanzania averaged 3.2 percent during the period which was lower than 3.6 percent in the period and 3.5 percent in the corresponding quarter for 2019, mainly due to reduction of non-food item prices particularly petroleum products.
Consumer price index inflation remained subdued and below the country medium-term target of five percent. “During the quarter, Eswatini, Lesotho, Mozambique and Tanzania met SADC convergence criteria of between 3-7 percent,” the report stated.
It further noted that Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa and Tanzania recorded lower inflation rates than in the corresponding quarter in 2019, thanks to low demand and decline in global oil prices. Angola and Zambia had headline inflation rates of above 10 percent on account of higher food prices and local currency depreciation.
“The 64.1 percent increase of the twelve-month headline inflation in the region was largely on account of hyperinflation in Zimbabwe fueled by rapid local currency devaluation coupled with large current account deficit,” the Central Bank report explained.
Meanwhile the report said in the East African Community, headline inflation for the period averaged 5.8 percent compared with 2.1 percent in the corresponding quarter in 2019. Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda registered declines in headline inflation when compared with the corresponding quarter in 2019, owing to a decline in fuel prices.
Conversely, Rwanda and Burundi experienced higher inflation rates due to the rise in food prices. Rwanda had inflation of 8.7 percent and Burundi registered 8.4 percent.
Handing over the chairmanship of SADC to Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi, President John Magufuli highlighted achievements made during the past year as including better macro-economic management and fiscal discipline.
He said other achievements are adoption of regional guidelines for harmonizing and facilitating movement of critical goods and services across the 16 member bloc in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
“This has shown how committed our region is in fulfilling its integration agenda. In this regard, going forward , I call upon all SADC member states to continue working together not only in addressing COVID-19 impacts but also in preparing strategies on how to deal with the post pandemic situation,” Dr Magufuli said in a virtual summit to contain the virus spreading.
