Interview: Industrial cooperation to benefit both Tanzania and China: minister

The industrial capacity cooperation between Tanzania and China will be very developmental to Tanzania's economy and it will not only benefit Tanzania, but also benefit China, said Abdallah Kigoda, Tanzania's Minister of Industry and Trade.

This cooperation will be very productive and it's also timely because Tanzania now need to shift from agriculture-led economy to industry-led economy, Kigoda told Xinhua in an exclusive interview in Dar es Salaam.

Official data showed that a total of 522 investment projects from China worth 2.49 billion U.S. dollars have been registered in Tanzania as of June 2014.

Industrial capacity cooperation mainly refers to moving production lines from a country to another one or setting up factories, industrial parks with local partners, mainly employing local people.

In his trip to China last year, Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete met with Chinese President Xi Jinping who expressed China's readiness to cooperate with Tanzania in building the East African country's industrial capacity, Kigoda said.

"The decision made by our President and President of China is a viable decision... and we are really interested to start the cooperation now," he said.

"The cooperation will help us to move from the state where by now the industrial production in GDP is only about nine percent. We want to move it to higher heights as our vision is to make Tanzania a middle-income country," he said.

This cooperation, if well focused, will apply to solve a number of problems Tanzania is facing now, the minister said, adding that one of the problems is the question of value addition, especially the link between the agricultural sector and industrial sector.

"We hope that the capacity which we are going to build will focus on how to create big capacity in value addition, especially our agricultural products like cotton and cashew nuts. So we think that agro-processing industries will take priority in this issue," he said.

As over 70 percent of Tanzania's 45 million population are under 35-year-old, the Tanzanian government has been facing the youth unemployment issue which could jeopardize the country's political, economic and social stability.

"This cooperation will definitely minimize one of the problems in our economy, that's the youth unemployment. I think that with youth capacity building in the industrial sector, we are going to create employment," Kigoda said.

"If you look at the integrated industrial development strategy, one of our aims now is to ensure that we also invest heavy industries," he said.

"The good thing about that is we have raw materials. We have iron and coal in Liganga and Mchuchuma. We have also discovered gas in Mtwara. This is an area which could be a very good basis for starting heavy or basic industry."

While Tanzania can't use all these resources because of its limited industrial capacity, China has been importing raw materials like iron and gas from other countries. If Tanzania and China work closely, this cooperation will be very helpful to the development of both countries, according to the minister.

Expressing his eagerness to the industrial capacity cooperation between Tanzania and China, Kigoda also acknowledged that there are a number of challenges which Tanzania have to deal with for the cooperation.

He listed the challenges as high cost of energy, insufficient skill training of workers and poor road infrastructure especially in rural areas.

"The other area is the decision-making process. We have to be very active in making decisions so that we don't delay projects, we don't delay programs," he said. Endi