TANZANIA 2008 ECONOMIC GROWTH SEEN 7.7%-MIN

Tue 6 Nov 2007, 14:38 GMT
LONDON (Reuters) - The Tanzanian economy is expected to grow 7.7 percent next year and inflation will ease to around 5 percent by the middle of 2008, Juma Ngasongwa, Minister of Planning, Economy and Empowerment said on Tuesday.
"The economy has recovered from shocks, although oil prices remain high," Ngasongwa said during an investment conference in London.
Ngasongwa said gross domestic product would increase by 7.3 percent in 2007, which compares with 6.2 percent in the previous year when a severe drought hit agriculture.
He said inflation had risen to 7.2 percent in October due to rising fuel prices, but forecast price growth easing to 5.9 percent at the end of 2007, and then falling further.
"Inflation...is expected to decline and reach the 5 percent target in June 2008," he said.
Ngasongwa also said Tanzania, which has had its own stock exchange for the past 10 years, was involved in talks about a regional stock market.
"We are in discussions in East Africa, we are looking into the possibility of an East Africa stock exchange."
Kenya and Uganda last year signed an agreement to merge their stock exchanges within two years.
Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda are members of the East African Community, which also includes Burundi and Rwanda.
Rwanda also wants its stock market to be part of an East African regional exchange, vice governor of the National Bank of Rwanda Consolate Rusagara told Reuters on the sidelines of the conference.
"African markets are not liquid, some of these markets are too small to operate on their own," she said.
Rwanda's first stock exchange will be operational in the first quarter of 2008, the bourse's executive director, Robert Mathu, told Reuters this week.