DAR ES SALAAM, March 20 (Xinhua) -- Freshly-minted banknotes have reportedly gone missing at the Dar es Salaam International Airport after the shipment arrived aboard a Qatar Airways flight, local media reported on Friday.

    The This Day report said that the shipment had started from Germany and arrived in Tanzania via a stopover in Doha of Qatar.

    The newspaper quoted unidentified sources from Tanzania's central bank, Bank of Tanzania, as saying that the banknotes had been minted in Germany and had been all in the 10,000 Tanzanian shilling denominations.

    The 10,000-shilling banknote is the largest denomination banknote now in circulation in the country.

    Bank sources told the news daily that the shipment had arrived at the Dar es Salaam airport on March 9 but was not dealt with until March 11 when it was found to be missing. March 10 was a local religious holiday, the Maulid.

    The newspaper tried to establish when and at which point the shipment of the new banknotes had gone missing, nor could the newspaper establish the exact amount of the missing money.