DAR ES SALAAM, Nov 4 (Reuters) – Tanzania expects its overall spending to rise 7% in the fiscal year from June 2022 to July 2023 fiscal year and economic growth to jump in 2022, its finance minister said.

Mwigulu Nchemba said in a speech to parliament late on Wednesday he forecast overall spending to rise to 39.39 trillion Tanzanian shillings ($17.2 billion) from 36.68 trillion shillings in the year to the end of June 2022, and aimed to keep the budget deficit at below 3% of gross domestic product.

He said economic growth was forecast to jump to 5.2% in 2022 from an estimated 5% this year. The 2021 forecast is lower than the 5.6% figure the finance ministry gave in June.

Nchemba said the 2022/23 budget would focus on construction of a standard gauge railway, a 2,115-megawatt (MW) hydropower dam in eastern Tanzania, a crude oil pipeline from Uganda and a liquefied natural gas processing plant in Lindi in the country’s southeast.

Other projects the government would focus on are two hydropower projects with a total installed capacity of 580 MW, Nchemba said.

($1 = 2,296 Tanzanian shillings)

(Reporting by Nuzulack Dausen; Writing by George Obulutsa; Editing by Alison Williams and Christian Schmollinger)