TANZANIA: LOCAL BUSINESSES APPEAL FOR SUPPORT

A NUMBER of local entrepreneurs who took part in the Dar es Salaam International Trade Fair (DITF) have appealed for painstaking support from the government and other stakeholders to make their activities more successful.

They also asked financial institutions to be geared in offering loans to them at a low cost rate unlike now where terms are complicated.

Mr Vicent Daudi who makes handcraft products observed that they were acquiring loans from Pride Tanzania--a private institution but the support was inadequate to make them run their activities efficiently.

He observed that their efforts could be more effective if the government and other stakeholders should be ready in supporting them in terms of stable market and funds.

He said that sometimes they were being frustrated by unstable market for their products as the customers for their commodities were unpredictable.

"Personally I find difficulty in finding a market because I make a number of items but end up without finding enough buyers, this is the main area where I think much efforts should be directed to make our endeavours more sustainable," he noted.

Another entrepreneur, Ms Elda Mamlasha, pointed out that it was only Pride Tanzania that supported them but due to big number of entrepreneurs who depended on the institution, the support was unsatisfactory.

She maintained that Pride Tanzanian was conducting capacity building trainings, entrepreneurship seminars and other guidelines on the best ways to carry out their activities.

However, Ms Mamlasha noted that more private and government institutions were supposed to take the centre stage in backing up their efforts.

She further appealed to the government to mull possibility of imposing strict terms against imported items from other countries which competed with the locally made goods.

"There are some simple items that can even be made locally but is surprising to see that the authorities are still allowing such goods to be imported, this makes us face stiff competition in the market," she explained.

She said that Chinese items penetration into Tanzanian market was a serious concern that if left unchecked, then it was obvious that survival of handcraft industry would remain hanging in balance.