No one wants to invest in Tanzania!

 In his speech on the first anniversary of ‘Kilimo Kwanza’ initiative last month, President Jakaya Kikwete said the government was doing whatever it took to make green revolution a reality.

Massive investment in agriculture only way out - TIC

By The guardian reporter

Tanzania Investment Centre (TIC) executive director Emmanuel Ole Naiko has stressed the need for significant investment and improvement in agriculture to ensure increased production in manufacturing, mining and tourism sectors.

Ole Naiko said there would be no sufficient investment to lift an economy, which depended on agriculture for over 40 per cent of its GDP, unless there was also progress in the sector. The TIC chief said this in Dar es Salaam yesterday when marking the Annual Engineers Day to discuss ‘Kilimo Kwanza’. He explained that Tanzania’s economy would not reach the growth rate of 8 to 10 per cent per annum - the rate needed to have a long-lasting impact on poverty – without significant investment and improvement in agriculture.

‘Kilimo Kwanza’ is an ambitious government initiative that seeks to attain green revolution by involving both the public and private sectors in building a strong, sustainable and viable economic progress.

“Unless we offer our farmers fair prices and stable income, we will not be able to create a dent in poverty,” he observed. He explained that entering into large-scale commercial agriculture would be one way of helping small-farmers in the country and Africa at large to compete with large-scale farmers in Europe, America, Canada and other countries, who received subsidies for their agricultural produce. “We cannot afford to give any subsidies to our poor farmers. As Africans and Tanzanians, we have to fight for our insignificance in the world trade, in goods and services in the face of globalisation,” Ole Naiko noted.

He argued that Tanzania had decided very affirmatively that agriculture was a top priority that would make the country a bread basket of developing nations, which imported much food.

He cautioned that attracting investments to the agricultural sector was facing a challenge due to the recent global financial crisis. Foreign Direct Investment inflows (FDI) declined globally from USD2.2trn in 2007 to USD1.1trn in 2009. Statistics show that FDI inflows to Africa in 2007 were just USD72bn; the highest ever recorded but fell to USD59bn in 2009. Globally, the FDI inflows that have been going to the agriculture sector stood at between USD1-3bn. “We cannot compete if we continue to brag only that we have a lot of arable land producing raw commodities,” he said.

He added that Tanzania must undertake value addition in almost all of its agricultural produce alongside large commercial farmers to sustainably supply raw materials needed by agro-industries.

In his speech on the first anniversary of ‘Kilimo Kwanza’ initiative last month, President Jakaya Kikwete said the government was doing whatever it took to make green revolution a reality.

Already, the government has signed and ratified an ambitious Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP) in July this year. The programme, which is in line with the country’s ‘Kilimo Kwanza’ initiative, seeks to help African nations realise economic growth through agriculture-led development. This year’s agricultural budget has increased to 8.1 per cent in the 11.1trn/- budget, a step seen by stakeholders as a clear sign of the government’s resolve to revamp the sector.
The budget for irrigation infrastructure has increased eleven times from 2bn/- in 2009/10 to 23bn/- this financial year.

SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN

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