KCB BANK SETS ASIDE 110BN/- FOR SMES

KCB Bank Managing Director, Mr. Cosmas Kimario.

KCB Bank Tanzania has encouraged Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to present business development ideas to access over 110bn/-set aside to improve their businesses this year.

The Bank’s Managing Director, Mr. Cosmas Kimario said in Dar es Salaam yesterday during the Biashara Club Workshop that, the bank was ready to increase the amount as long as the presented ideas are constructive ones.

He cited the cotton farmers in the Lake Zone and fruits processors in the Coast Region as examples of SMEs who have already benefited with the fund that offers soft loans; though he wasn’t able to expose how much has been spent so far.

“We are intended to improve small and medium enterprises’ businesses whose majorities are farmers,” Kimario said. Tanzania is now on transitional period to an industrial economy, the step that needs collaborative efforts from various stakeholders.

As a financial institution, Mr. Kimario said, “we do play our part through among others, offering soft loans to these farmers with regard that industrialization depends much on farm outputs as raw materials to feed the industries.”

Apart from soft loans, KCB through Biashara Clubs has been connecting local traders with international companies for business network creation, experience sharing as well as markets searching. At the same time, the Bank has been offering training to SMEs on how best to go for and implement business plans.

The seminar participants from Perfect Infotech International Limited (PII), Mr. Ebenezer Msuya urged the government and other stakeholders to invest in Information Technology (IT) so as to match with technological change in the current transitional period into industrialization.

KCB Tax Consultant, Mr. Charles Adolf said tax payments were also part of the training after the Bank recognized that many SMEs do lack appropriate knowledge on the matter; something that posed challenges for relevant authorities in government revenues collection.

He went on that most traders have been engaging in the business but end-up halfway, after considering tax payment as a burden. The seminar came after the bank notice that some of the entrepreneurs do mix business with the intention of earning much profit but end up losing everything.

For instance, mixing livestock like birds and animals which endanger the business because if one group develops any kind of disease, it becomes difficult to notice the cause from which group the disease.

Daily News