Global Courant 2023-05-10 15:04:58
President Samia Suluhu Hassan is making strategic investments to revive Tanzania’s economy. She is Tanzania’s first female president and took office on March 19, 2021, following the death of her controversial predecessor, President John Magufuli. Tanzania is a popular tourist destination in East Africa, bordering eight other African countries and the Indian Ocean. It is home to natural wonders such as Mount Kilimanjaro and the Serengeti Wildlife Park, which is home to the world’s second largest land mammal migration.
Previously, the Tanzanian economy was heavily dependent on agriculture, despite a huge but underdeveloped extractive industry. 2020, the country’s GDP grew by 4.8% to $64.4 billion, making it East Africa’s second-largest economy after Kenya and the seventh-largest in Sub-Saharan Africa. The agricultural sector contributed 26.9 percent of GDP in 2020 and 30 percent by the end of 2021.
President Samia is focusing on investments in key infrastructure, such as roads, railways and ports, to improve connectivity within Tanzania and with neighboring countries. It also improves the business environment by reforming the legal and regulatory framework for investors and businesses.
Some infrastructure projects In her early days in office she undertook projects including the Tanzanite Bridge project in Dar es Salaam, the Mwanza-Isaka Standard Gauge Railway (SGR), the Julius Nyerere Hydropower Project (JNHP) and the construction of an oil pipeline from Hoima in Uganda to the Tanga region. She has also implemented pro-business moves and new trade policies to restore trade relations and open up the Tanzanian market to foreign investors and funding from the international community. These movements resulted in Moody’s Investors Service upgrade Tanzania’s economic outlook from stable to B2 positive in October 2022, which it still maintains.
“Tanzania’s renewed engagement with the IMF also has the potential to support greater government revenue generation capacity and unlock more concessional finance from development partners, supporting debt affordability and increased social spending,” Moody’s wrote.
President Samia’s efforts to improve the business and investment climate have led to more foreign direct investment (FDI), especially in the mining and hydrocarbon industries. Moody’s assessments indicate that this will lead to higher potential growth and improved international competitiveness for the country.
In the last year, the Tanzania Investment Center (TIC) recorded 132 investment projects worth $3.16 billion between July and November alone, which is almost triple the value of investment projects recorded in the same period of the previous year. More than 51% of these projects related to the manufacturing sector, highlighting President Samia’s deliberate economic diversification strategy away from agriculture. More than 150,000 Tanzanians have found employment with more than 100 local companies that have benefited from an investment program supported by the European Union (EU) from May 2022.
In March, President Samia invited investors in various sectors of the Tanzanian economy to further stimulate economic growth. Numerous sectors, including energy, ICT, telecom, agriculture, construction, real estate, financial services, transportation, manufacturing, extractive industries, tourism, services and media sectors, were opened to investment.
Recently, her government signed three major agreements with leading sports clubs in the United States in the major football and basketball leagues. These deals are aimed at strengthening strategic investment and tourism through sports with US clubs. Speaking at the US signing event, Hassan Abbas, Permanent Secretary of the Department of Tourism and Natural Resources, affirmed the government’s commitment to promoting sports and tourism worldwide.
The new partnerships aim to increase the number of tourists in various tourist circuits in the East African country. The American clubs involved in the agreement are Seattle Sounders FC, Seattle Seahawks (NFL) and Portland Trailblazers (NBA).
