TANZANIA GOVERNMENT IN PROCESS OF DRAWING UP BILL ON COMMODITY EXCHANGE MARKET

A law to establish an exchange market for commodities is in the pipeline.

The aim is to help farmers to sell their produce with much ease.

The Capital Markets and Securities Authority (CMSA) is finalising the process of establishing the Tanzania Commodity Exchange Market (TCX).

CMSA principal public relations officer Charles Shirima, has told The Citizen that the process to amend the CMSA law so as to accommodate TCX is going on.

The draft document on the Bill for amending the CMSA law of 1994 is ready and will be tabled in Parliament in February 2015.

“Under the commodity market, most agricultural products will access local and international markets, leading to increases in agricultural earnings to farmers and subsequent investments in the processing industries for value addition,” he said.

The commodity exchange, according to CMSA, provides price transparency, price discovery and reduced transaction costs. “This is in line with decisions of five member states of the East African Community who have agreed to form commodity exchange markets. In fact Kenya’s commodity market is operating but I don’t think that it is performing well. Other East African countries are yet to form it,” said a senior lecturer in agribusiness at the Sokoine University of Agriculture, Dr Anna Temu.

She called upon Tanzania to learn from Ethiopia on how to operate effective and successful commodity exchange markets.

Ethiopia’s success stems from the support the country has received from the International Food Policy Research Institute.

Currently, Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX) has been successfully marketing various agricultural products to access lucrative markets.

Basically, the TCX will work like the Dar es Salaam bourse.

The Citizen