AfricaPress-Tanzania: TANZANIA’S government has urged investors to take advantage of the conducive environment for investments devised by the current regime to expand their business and create decent employment for youth and women.
The Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office (Investment), Ms Angella Kairuki made the call on Wednesday during her familiarization tour at the leading vegetable and fruits processor, Arusha based Darsh Industries Ltd (DIL).
“The idea behind the fifth phase Government of Tanzania is to create enabling environment for investors is to be able to expand their businesses and employ more local people so that we reduce poverty among our population,” Kairuki explained.
Meanwhile the Minister commended DIL for its efforts to penetrate into the regional markets and beyond, promoting Tanzania as a reliable country, with quality tomato and fruits products.
“I am impressed by your quality products and more seriously with your initiative to penetrate into international markets. This implies that Tanzania is capable to feed the world with value additional fruits and vegetable, instead of raw material as it used in the past,” Ms Kairuki noted.
On his remarks his remarks, DIL Managing Director, Bhadresh Pandit told the Minister that in there two production plantd (Arusha and Iringa regions) they have employed 400 workers and among them 70 percent are women and the remaining are men.
Also he said it has also employed indirectly 3,000 people such as farmers, transporters, porters, suppliers and dealers.
In its success side, the Director also noted that 13 billion investement in their Iringa factory, the largest in East and Central Africa, has a capacity to process a 200 metric tonnes of raw tomatoes per day, offering a ready market for tomato growers in Iringa and Morogoro regions.
“It is also credited to have pioneered an introduction of tomato paste to the Tanzanian market and it is now the country’s biggest tomato processor. We have produce products such as; tomato sauce, ketchup, paste, chill sauces, fruit jams, peanut butter, honey, food spices such as pickles, vinegars, custard powder, mayonnaise, corn flour among others,” said the Pandit adding that;
“Our capacity is to produce 15,000 metric tonnes of the aforesaid vegetable and fruits products per annum. We have created sustainable market for our small-scale farmers in northern and southern highlands.
In his final remarks, he asked the Government to waive a 25 percent import duty on printed tin cans, glass bottles and caps, drums and aseptic bags to help local products to be competitive in the World markets.
Mr Pandit further requested the government to remove also the ten percent import duty on food additives and stabilizers.
“We are humbly requesting our government to waive customs import duties on crucial imported raw and packaging materials not readily available in the country. The move will help our local products to be competitive in the East African region and beyond to sustain amid a cutthroat competition,” he said.
