Africa-Press – Tanzania. DAR ES SALAAM: PRIME Minister Mr Kassim Majaliwa on Thursday challenged the Tanzania Bureau of Standards (TBS) and the Ugandan National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) to enhance production of quality products in order to boost exports.
He said it is through production of quality products the two East African nations can scale up trade by attracting customers from across the globe.
Mr Majaliwa underlined the significance of producing high quality products, while opening Uganda Tanzania Business Forum 2024 in Dar es Salaam on Thursday.
“I am aware that the major challenge for locally produced goods and services is on meeting both national and international standards. I believe both nations have the bureau of standards, TBS and UNBS in Tanzania and Uganda respectively. These institutions should strengthen conformity to global standards,” he said.
Adding “Be a Ugandan investing in Tanzania or a Tanzanian investing in Uganda, all their products in our two countries should meet the standards so as to attract local and foreign customers.”
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Currently, he noted that the trade opportunities between Tanzania and Uganda remain inadequately exploited as of 2023, the former only exported products worth 310.67 million US dollars (about 808bn/-) to Uganda while the latter only imported goods worth 154 million US dollars (about 400bn/-) to Tanzania.
In that regard, he demanded the standards watchdogs to strengthen supervision and coordination to all producers so that they can produce goods and services which meet standards.
Also, he urged all participants of the forum bringing together traders and industrialists to come up with recommendations including on building capacity of the countries’ human resources, who are the key drivers of production.
He also urged traders and investors to utilise strategic marketing and promotional approach which can increase local goods visibility globally and attract customers.
He noted that production of first-class products will enable the two countries to trade beyond their borders by leveraging a comparative advantage of their goods.
The Premier also said Tanzania is committed to building a sustainable and inclusive economy, which transcends beyond its borders by putting in place required infrastructure including electricity, roads, ports, airports and railways which eventually attracts Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs).
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Moreover, he noted that the government under President Samia Suluhu Hassan continues to embrace the economic diplomacy by opening up doors to investors through the Tanzania Investment Centre (TIC).
He commended the TIC and Tanzania Private Sector Foundation (TPSF) for collaborating with the Private Sector Foundation Uganda and Uganda Investment Authority (UIA) to organise the forum, which among others, intends to boost investment and trade through Business to Business (B2B) and Government to Business (G2B) engagements.
Earlier, Uganda’ Minister of State for Foreign Affairs in Charge of Regional Affairs, Mr John Mulimba urged traders in the two countries to fully use the East Africa Community’s (EAC) common market protocol and custom union in order to increase production and trade.
He said Uganda embraces the protocols to enhance trade with Tanzania. On her part, Private Sector Foundation Uganda’s Vice-Chairperson Ms Sarah Kagingo, highlighting the current business trend between two countries, said in most cases it is primarily still dominated by agricultural products such as cereal and oil seeds.
She said private sector in collaboration with the government in two countries can spark the industrialisation to increase value addition and diversify trade by leveraging other economic sectors including mining, energy and finance.
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