Africa-Press – Tanzania. OVER 100 entrepreneurs have registered for an industrialisation drive by the Dar es Salaam-based Kamal Group, the company said yesterday.
The aspirants will now undergo a special programme that will culminate into their owning small-medium scale cashew nut processing factories at the firm’s Industrial park at Zinga in Bagamoyo.
“We have managed to attract more than 100 Tanzanian aspirants and many more are still invited,” said the Kamal Group chairman, Mr Gagan Santosh Gupta as he took the participants through the programme in Dar es Salaam yesterday.
Kamal Group’s programme seeks to create hundreds of small-medium scale cashew nut processing factories to raise the volume of locally processed products, leveraging on a system that is applicable in India.
Available data shows that more than 90 per cent of Tanzania’s cashew nuts are exported in raw form, thereby depriving the country of jobs and foreign exchange earnings.
Gracing the event, Tanzania Private Sector Foundation (TPSF) board member, Mr Silvestry Koka said, “This initiative has what it takes to propel inclusive growth,” said Mr Koka, also a Member of Parliament for Kibaha Urban (CCM).
Mr Koka, who also chairs TPSF’s corporate cluster, said it was encouraging that Kamal’s initiative has come at a time when the private sector’s apex body was spearheading the dialogue on the local content policy as a way to developing a formidable Tanzanian business community.
In the initiative, Kamal Group will allot the 100 entrepreneurs with land, buildings and machinery, valued at a total cost of 84.6m/- so they can start processing cashew nuts.
Each of the 100 entrepreneurs will only be required to have 16.92m/- – which is 20 per cent of 84.6m/– as seed capital to qualify for the project.
The 16.92m/-will be equal to 20 per cent of the 84.6m/-in machinery, land and building costs that each entrepreneur is required to have to set up a small-medium scale processing factory.
The remaining 67.68m/-, which is equivalent to 80 per cent of the factory costs, will be financed through a bank loan. In return, each of the entrepreneurs will be able to make up to 37.8m/- each year in profit from the cashew nut processing business after deducting for all the operating costs.
The amount in profits will go up to over 60m/- per year after the completion of payment of the bank loan in four years.
“It has always been my belief that growing the economy is not about having few people with money but it is about creating an environment where Tanzanians will become entrepreneurs and industrialists so they can make money and I trust they will, and this will be the start of the new era of industrialisation in the country and those successful Tanzanian entrepreneurs will share the success stories to all other Tanzanians,” said Mr Gagan.
Mr Gagan said yesterday that two model plants had already been imported and that they will be set up for actual processing to start and for skill development, training and education purposes.
