Tanzania - Telecoms is helping drive the economy, growing 20 per cent

[tanzania daily news] The communication sector has emerged as a strong growth-driver of the economy for the year 2008/09.

According to the Minister for Finance and Economic Affairs Mr Mustafa Mkulo, the communication sector grew at 20.5 per cent during the period followed by the financial mediation with 11.9 per cent.

In his annual economic performance report to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) released last month, Mr Mkullo said that the strong performance in communication sector was mainly explained by the increase in mobile phone subscribers and the attendant increase in sales of airtime.

He said the construction sector was the third with 10.5 per cent in the ranking.

He said that strong performance of financial intermediation mirrored the effect of the ongoing financial sector reforms, strong growth in credit to the private sector and increased competition in insurance services.

However, he noted that despite the good performance of the economy as a whole, a notable slow down of growth was observed in mining and quarrying sub-activities which dropped to 2.5 per cent from 10.7 per cent in 2007.

Tanzania economy grew by 7.4 per cent in 2008, slightly higher than the 7.1 per cent recorded in 2007, with the economy slowing toward the end of the year.

Tanzania:Communication Growth Records 20.5 Percent