DAR ES SALAAM, April 16 (Xinhua) -- The Tanzania shilling has remained stable for the past two years against the U.S. dollar because of effective supervision and implementation of monetary policies, an official told parliament on Tuesday.

Ashatu Kijaji, the east African nation's Deputy Minister for Finance and Planning, said the stabilization of the shilling was also attributed to control on the inflation rate.

"The value of the shilling dropped by 2 percent in 2017/2018 and 2016/2017 compared to the fall of 22 percent in 2015/2016," she told parliament in the capital Dodoma.

Kijaji was responding to a question from Tumbatu Member of Parliament Juma Othman Hija who had sought to know strategies taken by the government to control the shilling from falling against other foreign currencies.

"In the last fiscal year, the shilling remained relatively stable compared with the Rwandan franc which fell by 5 percent and the Ugandan shilling that fell by 3.8 percent," she told the house.

To maintain the stability of the shilling, she said, the government was taking a number of initiatives including promotion on the increase of local production of goods and services as well as increasing exports.

"Controlling the foreign exchange shops business is also a key initiative taken by the government to ensure that our shilling remains stable," added Kijaji.