President John Magufuli and his South African counterpart Jacob Zuma on Thursday implored the business communities in both countries to fully exploit immense investment opportunities for the mutual benefits of wananchi.
President Magufuli, addressing the Tanzania-South Africa business forum in Dar es Salaam on Thursday, detailed the available investment opportunities, which South African companies can invest in including gas and oil, mining, infrastructure, ports, agriculture, tourism, and fisheries.
“Tanzania has a favourable business and investment environment, we are peaceful and politically stable, enjoying uninterrupted peace since independence.
So, Tanzania is the ideal place for you to invest,” he explained. Dr Magufuli said Tanzania has stable and predictable economic policies and investment regimes that are business friendly, “We have receptive fiscal policies to investors... corporate tax, customs duty, valued added tax, capital investment, work and residence permits are all favourable.”
He said the investment law protects investments, adding that Tanzania is also a member to the international centre for settlement of investment disputes and Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), for guaranteed investor safety in the country.
“We have a huge market; we are in a very strategic area, bordering eight countries, six of them -- Burundi, DRC, Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda and Zambia --landlocked. They both use Tanzania to conduct their international trade,” he explained.
He argued that investing in Tanzania means trading with all the landlocked countries.
“As member to the East African Community with 165 million people and SADC, you as investors are assured of huge market of about 400 million people.”
President Zuma stressed on the need to extend and expand relations between the two countries, especially on the economy to avail people in both countries with an opportunity to reap the benefits of historic relations between the two brotherly nations.
“In our discussions, President Magufuli welcomed more South African companies to invest in Tanzania. This is an important call that I encourage all of you to heed,” he stressed.
President Zuma underscored the need to intensify production and get rid of reliance on commodity as engine of growth and development, stressing that recent drop in prices has shown that it has potential to disrupt and destabilize economies and does not create quality jobs.
“While we welcome the growing trend on our bilateral trade, we should also note that a concentration on commodities is not sustainable, the recent drop in commodity prices has shown that governments cannot rely on commodity as engine of growth and development.
It has the potential of disrupting and destabilizing our economies and does not create sufficient quality jobs. We need to look at intensifying production,” he noted inviting Tanzania business community to also invest in South Africa.
He added that South Africa government will undertake a trade mission in June this year with a view to take forward the commitment made during his visit towards further cementing economic cooperation in the various areas identified.
The Chairman of Tanzania Private Sector Foundation, Dr Reginald Mengi, expressed gratitude to the two leaders for the opportunity of bringing together the business communities from both sides to share ideas and learn from each other.
Dr Mengi argued that where the two parties have agreed to partner, they should endeavour to work for mutual benefits. South Africa Private Sector representative Petros Vusi underscored the importance of crafting solutions to address challenges related to unemployment, poverty and inequality in the pursuit of economic transformation in both countries.
“The big elephant in the room your excellences, is funding. We need to find ways on how to corroborate to realize these projects that have been indicated here today, most of them are huge.
The message we are taking home is that partnership is important to succeed,” he explained.
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