The cashew nuts export ban has affected Tanzania’s balance of payments after recording a deficit of $500 million in one month. All cashews harvested in Tanzania during the 2018/19 farming season are still in warehouses, waiting to be processed before being exported. In the previous harvest season, the crop fetched $575 million exports earnings.

The ban on cashew nuts exports has resulted in a gap in Tanzania’s balance of payments, widening the deficit by about $500 million in the month of November last year.

The monthly economic review of the Central Bank of Tanzania (BoT) for December 2018 has it that the country’s overall balance of payments (BoPs) recorded a deficit of $753.0 million in the year that ended on November 30, 2018, as against the deficit of $171.6 million recorded in October that year.

The review says that export earnings for cashew nuts– currently Tanzania’s most valuable export crop–dropped due to a decline in export volumes that is attributable to the government decision to halt raw cashew exports and opt for domestic processing of the crop.

Cashew exports fetched $575 million, which was equivalent to the combined exports earnings from five commercial crops, namely tobacco, tea, coffee, cotton, and sisal.

In a related development, the government recently announced that it had bought more than 200,000 tonnes of cashew nuts from farmers in the cashew farming regions, ready to be exported after they are processed locally.

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