World Bank (WB) Country Director, Bella Bird has advised the Tanzanian government on how to sustain the country`s economic growth for achieving a middle-income economy by 2025.
The idea is to retain that status beyond that period. Ms. Bird noted that Tanzania had enjoyed relatively high and stable growth in the past 15 years.
Based on official statistics, Tanzania`s economy has grown more than 6 per cent annually in the past period.
“This ranks Tanzania among the best performing countries in Sub-Saharan Africa,” she commented recently during the launch of a workshop on the status of Tanzania`s journey towards the middle-income economy status.
The Path to a Middle Income Country: Benchmarking Tanzania was the theme of the workshop that was held in Dar es Salaam.
It involved economic experts reflecting on the status and progress realized by Tanzania towards the middle-income economy status stipulated in the country`s Development Vision 2025. The focus was to share experience from other countries that recently achieved the middle-income status. With the WB team led by Yutaka Yoshino, lessons from countries like Bangladesh and Vietnam were presented. Ms. Bird said the two countries had realized fast growth in per capita income in the past 10 years and how Tanzania was today compared to those countries.
Economic and Social Research Foundation (EASRF) Executive Director, Dr. Tausi Kida, said it was envisioned that Tanzania would have graduated from the least developed countries (LDCs) category to be consistent with this vision and that it was aspired that Tanzania of 2025 should be a nation imbued with five attributes of the middle-income economy by 2025 with high levels of human development.
However, Dr. Kida challenged the participants to find answers as to why Tanzania was finding it difficult to realize the desired levels of growth in the manufacturing sector to the target of 13.0 per cent aspired in the Development Vision of 2025. She further explained that the aspect of human capital was very crucial for raising production. `We have to look at the aspect of human capital very critically as well as the issue of technology if we want to transform our economy and increase productivity, ` she stated.
At the moment, the level of growth of the manufacturing sector stands at 7.1 per cent.
