Former president, Benjamin Mkapa (pictured), said on Monday he is disappointed that Tanzanians do not utilise the services offered by the Tanzania Investment Centre (TIC).
He said he was also irked by wrong notion held by majority of the people that the centre is meant for foreigners and not for local investors. “TIC is now performing better.
The only problem is people’s attitude that the centre is for foreigners…and locals step aside,” he said at a signing ceremony for Investment Climate Facility for Africa (ICF) support of to 950,000 US dollars to TIC to boost investments at the centre.
He said he was also irked by wrong notion held by majority of the people that the centre is meant for foreigners and not for local investors. “TIC is now performing better.
The only problem is people’s attitude that the centre is for foreigners…and locals step aside,” he said at a signing ceremony for Investment Climate Facility for Africa (ICF) support of to 950,000 US dollars to TIC to boost investments at the centre.
“The pace to utilise TIC facilities by local investors is slow…the attitude change also goes very slowly.
We need to work hard to raise awareness and education to more Tanzanians,” Mr Mkapa said. The centre, according to Mr Mkapa, is designed to enhance investment by Tanzanians but locals shy away from the centre, leaving it to serve foreign investors only.
The idea was to promote local investments and drive them away from depending mostly from the government. The ex-president said another problem was a lukewarm response given to investors by some government officers who still harbour negative attitudes to private investments.
Earlier, TIC Chairman Prof Lucian Msambichaka said in the last ten years the centre had registered 7,159 investment projects with expected value of 154.274 billion US dollars and estimated to have created almost a million jobs.
“The leading sector in terms of number of registered projects comes from manufacturing followed by tourism and commercial building,” Prof Msambichaka said.
The projects that are wholly owned by Tanzanians are 3,535 comprising 49.38 per cent, while foreigner projects were 1,676 or 23.41 per cent and joint venture 1,964 or 27.18 per cent.
We need to work hard to raise awareness and education to more Tanzanians,” Mr Mkapa said. The centre, according to Mr Mkapa, is designed to enhance investment by Tanzanians but locals shy away from the centre, leaving it to serve foreign investors only.
The idea was to promote local investments and drive them away from depending mostly from the government. The ex-president said another problem was a lukewarm response given to investors by some government officers who still harbour negative attitudes to private investments.
Earlier, TIC Chairman Prof Lucian Msambichaka said in the last ten years the centre had registered 7,159 investment projects with expected value of 154.274 billion US dollars and estimated to have created almost a million jobs.
“The leading sector in terms of number of registered projects comes from manufacturing followed by tourism and commercial building,” Prof Msambichaka said.
The projects that are wholly owned by Tanzanians are 3,535 comprising 49.38 per cent, while foreigner projects were 1,676 or 23.41 per cent and joint venture 1,964 or 27.18 per cent.
Source: Daily News, reported from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
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