Browsing: Tanga Cement Tanzania

Bank of Tanzania, situated in Dar es Salaam. Photo Source: Flickr - The Exchange
Earlier this week, several people forwarded me a link to a recent article published by The Economist, which makes the bold claim that Tanzania’s official economic statistics are bogus.
Among other things, the nameless author (a feature of The Economist is that it has no by-lines) claims that cement sales by the top two firms are “flat,” and bank lending to companies slumped. To quote the article directly:“If Tanzania’s economy grew by almost 7% in the fiscal year to the end of June 2019, why did tax revenue fall by 1%? And why has bank lending to companies slumped? Private data are bad, too. In 2019 sales at the biggest brewer fell by 5%. Sales of cement by the two biggest producers were almost flat. None of these things is likely if growth is storming ahead. The discrepancies are so large that it is hard to avoid the