Bank of Tanzania governor, Prof Benno Ndulu, on January 7, said the Tanzania’s economy should grow by 7% in 2016 and sustain this rate over the next years due to the improved performances of the industrial sector which compensated for the drop in the prices of commodities.

“In spite of the current inflation Tanzania and most East African countries experience, the country will keep recording a significant growth,” the Governor told Bloomberg.

Due to the hike in prices of food products which constitute a significant part of the overall consumption basket price in Eastern Africa, the inflation rate in December soared to 6.8% against 6.6% a month before.

According to Prof Ndulu, Tanzania’s current account deficit was found around 8% of GDP in 2015 against 13% and 14% the previous years.

“This is due to increasing exports. Also, despite the decrease in revenues generated by our gold exports, we made tremendous progress in terms of industrial exports,” explained the executive adding that tourism also went up the slope settling to $2.1 billion in 2015.

Tanzania’s new president John Magufuli, who took office last November, has decided to accelerate economic growth by diversifying more national economy that still mainly depends on agriculture and gold exports, for which Tanzania is the fourth major producer in Africa.