Minister for Industries, Trade and Investments, Mr Charles Mwijage has called Moroccan investors to direct their capital in agriculture and development of industries in the country.
Mr Mwijage was speaking amid the ongoing three-day state visit of Moroccan King, Mohamed VI in the country. He said his visit to Tanzania is set to boost bilateral investment and strengthen economies of the two countries.
Mr Mwijage said the government is looking forward to convince Moroccan investors to focus on agriculture sector in the country. He said Bank of Africa (BOA) in Tanzania is expected to get a big boost after the visit of King Mohamed VI and that probably, Tanzanians will manage to get low interests loans.
“We want Moroccan investors to focus on agriculture and invest in agriculture bank, this will help to boost agriculture sector in the country,” he said.
He said many countries across the World are looking for investment areas especially in agriculture and that Moroccan investors could use the opportunity to invest and export processed agriculture products from Tanzania.
“Morocco is a fifth largest economy in Africa, this means they are strong economically, therefore they can team up with Tanzania investors to boost our economies,” said Mr Mwijage.
He added that Morocco is one of the strong countries that have invested in petrol and petrol chemicals and that their knowledge could be used to boost energy sector in Tanzania.
Moreover, the minister said Morocco is also looking forward to establish direct flight from Rabat to Dar es Salaam. He said the direct flight is expected to attract traders, tourists and other passengers to and from Tanzania.
According to Mr Mwijage, his office has already instructed Tanzania Investment Centre (TIC) and Tanzania Trade Development Authority (Tan- Trade) to address the problem and make sure Tanzania traders are participating fully in business related activities especially when there are foreign investors in the country.
“I am very troubled with this matter, very few Tanzanians appears to exchange ideas and expertise with foreign investors, I have instructed Tantrade and TIC to work on the matter, we want Tanzanian investors to effectively exploit opportunities,” he said.
Morocco is Africa’s fifth largest economy yielding a gross domestic product of 169.8bn/-US dollar. Much of Morocco’s wealth stems from the services industry, meaning a large portion of their GDP is obtained from mining, construction, and manufacturing.
This isn’t uncommon for many African nations, as many of them at least partially rely on the export of some valuable natural resource to drive their economy. In Morocco’s case, they rely on the export of phosphate, a natural resource often used as a vital ingredient in fertilisers, pesticides and animal feeds.
Morocco mines phosphates, barite, cobalt, fluorspar and lead. Also similarly to many other African nations, agriculture plays a crucial role in driving Morocco’s economy, with their leading exports being tomatoes, oranges and olives.
The rapid development of Morocco’s economy has in recent years resulted in a growth of over 4 percent annually, decidedly making them one of Africa’s richest nations.
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Credit: All Africa
