Africa-Press – Tanzania. ANALYSTs have expressed great hope on Tanzania-Burundi trade prosperity ahead of the forthcoming three-day working visit by Burundian President Evariste Ndayishimiye to Tanzania tomorrow.
They equally argued that President Ndayishimiye’s visit will further cement initiated efforts organized to strengthen trade between the two East African nations.
His visit comes barely three months after President Samia Suluhu Hassan in midJuly made a State-visit to the country, triggering several new developments after their talks aimed at fostering trade ties.
It was upon President Samia’s visit to Burundi that Tanzania offered a 10-hectare land within the Kwala Dry for the landlocked country to construct a depot for fast-tracking handling of its in-transit cargo.
The visit also resulted in an investor from Burundi establishing a fertilizer industry in Dodoma with a capacity of 500,000 tonnes, whose value is 180 million US dollars (equivalent to 423bn/-) expected to run and create over 3000 jobs.
According to the analysts, Tanzania and Burundi have continued to enjoy good diplomatic ties with the leaders from both the countries stressing on areas of trade, investment, technologically being given priority.
An economist-cumbanker, Dr Hildebrand Shayo said President Samia visit to Burundi and now Burundian president reciprocating-is an obvious show of cordial relationship between the two countries. Elaborating, he said there will be no obstacles that will inhibit their business goals, especially in this era of heightened globalization and trade intensification.
“Trade facilitation is critically important for small and medium-sized enterprises as they have lower turnovers than large multinational firms, and thus a lower capacity to absorb trade transaction costs.
“SMEs in Burundi are going to have more opportunities to deal with administrative burdens and open new opportunities and new markets or raise trade volumes in the existing markets,” said Dr Shayo.
Equally, he was of the view that the offered piece of land at Kwala Dry Port will facilitate Burundi business and make its traders complete favourably in economic development of their country. He, however, maintained that strengthening the relationship between the two nations is going to boost the private sector in both countries.
As such, many people fail to realise the potential hidden underneath, but one way to unleash the role of the private sector is the effective utilization of consultative mechanisms to coordinate with public and private stakeholders on a range of measures that need to be undertaken.
On his part, an economistscum-diplomatic expert, Prof Kitojo Watengere stressed that President Ndayishime’s visit to Tanzania would stimulate more trade and investment among the two countries. He pointed out that there is great need of building ties with close neighbouring countries s unlike those geographically placed apart. Prof Watengere further said: “President Samia’s visit focused on strengthening trade and investment and we are witnessing improvements in the areas.” Commenting, a University of Dodoma Lecturer, Dr Paul Loisulie, said neighbours countries always have things to share to strengthen relations and this is reflected through the two leaders’ talking and visiting one another.
“Likewise, frequent interactions increase confidence and trust among the people, this is why after such visits we have been witnessing investors expressing interest to invest in various areas to improve trade ties,” he added.
On his part, a don from the University of Dar es Salaam, Dr Richard Mbunda commented that building good relations with neighbours is critical in boosting trade ties.
