Tanzania’s economic growth is expected to drop to 2.5 per cent in 2020 from 6.9 per cent last year, the World Bank said on Monday, citing the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
“International travel bans and caution against contracting the virus have severely hurt the tourism sector, which had been one of the fastest-growing sectors in the economy,” the bank said in a statement.
It said the east African country’s economy would also be hurt by a decline in export demand, supply chain disruptions for domestic manufacturers and weak domestic consumption.
Separately, Uganda’s economic growth is expected to decline by more than half in the financial year to June 30 due to the effects of the COVID-19 crisis, the country’s statistics office said on Monday.
The East African country’s economic growth is expected to have slowed to 3.1 per cent, down from 6.8 per cent in the previous year, mainly due to reduced global demand following the coronavirus outbreak.
Mining and quarrying activities contracted by 2.8 per cent during the period compared to 33.4 per cent expansion in the year ended June 2019 while growth in sectors like manufacturing and construction slowed sharply.