Month: April 2020

It may be located hundreds of kilometres away from the former capital city Dar es Salaam, with its skyscrapers and high influx of people, Dodoma is Tanzania’s new primary geographical status. After more than 45 years of attempting to move, the relocation is real this time.

Dodoma is the capital city of Tanzania, with over 2.4 million people and with a landmass of about 41,000 square Kilometers, according to Tanzania’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

Since 1973 Dodoma was declared to be Tanzania’s capital city by the first President Julius Nyerere.

However—the move from Dar es Salaam to Dodoma took several twists, until the current President John Magufuli, unequivocally vowed to fulfil the declaration in 2016 (when government ministries started to move) and officially moved to Dodoma in October 2019.

After President Magufuli ordered various bodies of the government to initiate their move to Dodoma in July 2016, indispensable relocation …

The construction industry in Tanzania contributed an average of 13.6% to Tanzania’s GDP over the last two years representing a whopping USD6billion.

The government of Tanzania has dedicated more than a quarter (25.4%) of its annual national budget to infrastructure development projects. With such high stakes, the construction sector now offers new investment and employment opportunities for Tanzanian youth.

Meet Michael Kimei, the 33 year old young entrepreneur and born again Christian. Mr. Kimei is Owner and Manager of Aggregate Crushing Ltd, a construction company in Tanzania, the epitome of youth self employment.

“I have had passion for business ever since I was a child, and as a God fearing man and a firm believer of the gospel of Jesus Christ, my work is centered around living a God ordained life and putting hard work towards setting up my own business and taking it to golden heights for the glory …

After three decades of austerity measures on Somalia, the otherwise economically embattled East African nation is now, 30 years later, in good standing with the World Bank.

Well, before we start tipping our hats, let’s put ‘good standing’ in perspective, Somalia is now in good enough standing to receive grants but it is yet to get to economic stability that would warrant it WB loans.

To put it in the words of the World Bank, the international lender is now ready to ‘normalize relations’ with Somalia. The bank credited turning the new leaf with Somalia on its reasonably strong record of fiscal and political reforms over the last few years.

As World Bank’s Country Manager for Somalia, Mr. Hugh Riddell was quoted mid this month, good relations means that “…going forward, Somalia will be able to access grants to finance poverty reduction.”

In his media brief, the WB country executive …

Micro financing is the go to solution for small businesses as banks tighten lending conditions to stifle Non Performing Loans (NPLs). In Tanzania, as elsewhere, NPLs are no longer a problem for individual banks, rather a national economic problem managed by the Central Bank.

The Bank of Tanzania (BoT) now provides guidelines for banks to curb NPLs and to help, it has created what is referred to as Credit Reference Bureaus. These bureaus are meant to protect banks against bad credit or more directly, to protect them against bad debtors.

In Tanzania, there are now two credit reference bureaus both meant to protect banks from crippling NPLs. Rather than deal with recovery of bad loans, the bureaus are meant to keep banks from lending to potentially ‘bad debtors.’

Unchecked NPLs could bring a bank to closure, that means affecting all other bank customers, now multiply that across several banks and …

There is need for Tanzania to involve the private sector to help it fight against illegal fishing if the country is to curb the devastating economic sabotage.

The country is now grappling with illegal fishing, but with the ever depleting amount fish in Lake Victoria and other inland water masses as well, it seems to be a losing battle this far.

The already trouble sector, contributing an average of 2.2 per cent to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is taking more hits from illegal fishing.

So bad is the crisis that last month, while addressing the nation from the Lake City of Mwanza, the country’s President John Magufuli made a public appeal in to end the detrimental practice.

The president described illegal fishing as economic sabotage and warned that the nation is losing a vital natural resource, a key economic activity that provides daily livelihood for many and is a …

Fair trade is a fairy tale that belongs in a children’s fiction book. Just think—a fair playing ground is what every mom and pop shop has been crying for, for years. Yet every waking day, their tears fall on deaf ears, they seem to constantly draw the short end of the stick while the competition always gets the better deal.

To unravel this unfair ‘fair trade’ mystery, you have to first understand who or what the competition is. What makes the playing ground so uneven and how do you tip things in favour of small business?

Did you catch that? To even the field, you have to favour one side. Let us bring things into perspective here. Small businesses are being boxed out of businesses by multi-national corporations. These monstrosities of strategized mergers feed on one thing: takeovers.

Either they buy you out or you will, sooner than later, close …

Tanzania is well on its way to achieving its long coveted middle income status, and the mushrooming skyscrapers in most all its major cities are evidence. Well that’s one way to look at it.

You see, where investment is on the raise, it is safe to say the economy is stable and even growing. That is Tanzania for you, a stable growing economy where investment, especially in the real estate sector is growing, and growing exponentially.

Tanzania has been enjoying a steady economic growth over the last few years averaging an impressive 7% annually. However, for the sake of this article, lets leave the data in the papers for now and take to the streets, on the ground, what is actually happening?

In major cities like the capital Dodoma, development is hands on, on the ground right in front of you. Empty stretches of land are now housing complexes complete …

The European Union is one of Uganda’s major trading partners with annual trade balance books exceeding USD 1 billion every year.

However, more and more free trade pacts are been signed across Africa, opening ever more doors to new markets right within the country and this may upset the traditional foreign trade reliance.

For, now, international trade remains business as usual, why only last month, the EU announced that it is extending Uganda some USD97.5 million as grant financing to fund development projects in this financial year.

This latest grant pact further strengthens bilateral relations between the two even as EU investments in Uganda surpass the USD 2 billion mark per year.

To put icing on the cake, the Pearl of Africa is also expected to get foreign direct investments worth USD 733.3 million that EU firms, according to local media intend to invest over the course of the next …