AfricaPress-Tanzania: SHINYANGA residents were yesterday advised to opt for advanced production of seed crops as an opportunity to tap the growing demand of raw materials for industries refining sunflower and cotton oil in the region.
The call was made by the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Trade and Industries Professor Riziki Shemdoe after oil refining industries owners complained of the region farmer’s failure to produce quality sunflower seeds and cotton.
Prof Shemdoe comments aimed at making region’s farmers realize that for improved production of sunflower oil in the region there is a need for them to use improved seeds which will enable industries to refine quality sunflower products that will meet international standards.
He was of the view that during this Covid 19 pandemic the country is no longer relying much on imports from foreign countries calling it time for Tanzania to put more efforts on local produce for the purpose of exploiting local markets.
Prof Shemdoe did not adjoin into visiting the oil refining industries but also had to visit to other industries among which being the Camel meet processing industry and the Cotton fiber processing industry operating under the Chinese firms.
He called for the Camel meat processing industry to stick with rules as given by the Ministry of Livestock that gave them a condition to slaughter 30 camels a day as a legal measure to stop camels available in the country to perish.
“I have asked you here to establish whether there is any one here who have ever tested the meat but no one have ever tried so this meat is 100 per cent for export to China, I call for Shinyanga residents to continue keeping camels since this industry is also a business opportunity for us to benefit from,” he said.
Upon visiting the Cotton yarn industry Prof Shemdoe witnessed tones of processed Cotton yarn and came to realize that the reason behind was the industry failure to export threads to China due to Covid -19 pandemic and they could not supply to local industries since Export and Processing Zones Authority (EPZA) condition only allows 80 per cent of export to abroad.
The PS challenged EPZA to revisit the law since current legal set up requires processors to export 80 per cent of their goods abroad allowing only 20 per cent of goods for local market while the country still have industries and markets in need of products and raw materials the fact that will stop re-emergence of the similar fate above.
Prof Shemdoe also challenged Journalists to let the public aware of the government efforts in developing industries in the country the efforts that will end un employment in the country and contribute to the national economic growth.
He was quoted as sayinthat currently Tanzania has a total of 8447 industries that have been developed by the government on power and efforts are still underway to develop more industries as a way forward to reduce unemployment and promote economic growth.
The Shinyanga Regional Commissioner Zainab Telack assured the Ministry of Trade and Industry that Shinyanga calls for investors to come and invest in Shinyanga and they are assured of good working environment and land.
The Ps has been in tour in Shinyanga to explore areas of investments and majority of the industrial premises are situated within the External Processing Zones and are operating on condition and legal parameters as provided by EPZA.
