Africa-Press – Tanzania. TANZANIA has embarked on talks with various Chinese online marketing companies to amplify exports and reduce the existing trade deficit.
The talks come at a time when the trade balance between Tanzania and China is in favour of the latter.
On average, Dar es Salaam exports goods worth 145million US dollars, while imports 1.77billion US dollars of goods a year, according to the World Integrated Trade Solution (WITS).
WITS data further shows that in 2018, China topped Tanzania importation list where Beijing accounted for 20.7 per cent of total Dar es Salaam imports.
The second in the list was India with 14.3 per cent and the third was United Arab Emirates (UAE) with 10.2 per cent.
The much-awaited two– day official visit of Chinese State Councillor and Foreign Minister, Mr Wang Yi , is anticipated to open more channels to boost Dar es Salaam’s exports, while strengthening bilateral ties with the Asian giant.
Minister Wang is expected to jet into the country tomorrow and will be received by President John Magufuli at the new Geita Airport.
Government Chief Spokesperson Dr Hassan Abbasi told the ‘Daily News’ that both sides want to reach a win-win situation not only politically but also economically.
“Our long relationship is based on mutual understanding forged by the two founding fathers of both nations (Chairman Mao Tse Tung and Mwalimu Julius Nyerere),” Dr Abbasi said.
The Chief Spokesperson said Tanzania’s low share of trade to China is down to the fact that most Tanzanians are using traditional ways of doing business, where buyers and sellers want to meet face to face.
“Currently, 49 per cent of sales of goods and services in China are done online (online shopping). We have to change as well and go online,” Dr Abbasi said.
He added that the country should change the way of conducting physical auctions of agricultural and mineral products since the majority of buyers in China do not have the luxury and opportunity to travel to Tanzania.
“These requirements of ‘physical presence’ at auctions deprive us of the opportunity to sell our products to many buyers in China,” he said.
The government, however, started to address the challenges where the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Tanzania Embassy in China began negotiations with giant online marketing company— Alibaba.
“To address this challenge, the ministry through our embassy in China has begun negotiations with the business network company Alibaba to open up opportunities for Tanzanian products to be sold in the Chinese market through the network,” Dr Abbasi said.
Alibaba is the world’s largest retailer and e-commerce company, and on the list of largest Internet companies. In 2020, it was also rated as the fifth-largest artificial intelligence company.
Dr Abbasi also said to boost the country’s exports, the Tanzania embassy in Beijing continued with an advertising campaign, using Chinese media outlets to market the country’s products.
On top of that the embassy continued attending a number of trade exhibitions in a bid to market and publicise Tanzania’s goods.
Tanzania was given the opportunity to be among 30 countries with the National Pavilion at the Second China International Imports Expo held in Shanghai in November 2019.
In the exhibition, the Tanzanian pavilion was among six pavilions visited by the China President Mr XI Jinping, the event was aired on the Chinese media thus making Tanzanian products especially Tanzanite and cashew nuts more public in the Chinese market.
Similarly, in June 2019, Tanzania was among ten African countries that were given space to erect the National Pavilion at the First China- Africa Trade and Economic Exhibition held in Changsha City in Hunan State.
