Tanzania turns to western industrial mode

By Mnaku Mbani

In an effort to create conducive environment for turning it into an industrial economy, Tanzania is finding the way to copy the western mode to accelerate its idea of making it an industrial hub.Tanzania, the second East Africa largest economy, is targeting to become a middle income country, driven by industries by the year 2025, which is seen as crucial for inclusive economy.

This was said today by the Executive Director of REPOA, the local research think tank, Dr Donald Mmari when announcing the preparation of the 22^nd Annual Research Workshop, held this week.

For a long time, Tanzania has previously been copying the Asian Tiger industrial mode as the best way to reach the target of becoming an industrial economy such as Malaysia, Singapore and China.

The key speaker for the workshop was a researcher from Harvard University, who will bring another industrial perspective, mainly the European and American mode.

The workshop among other things discussed researches conducted locally and internationally, with more concentration targeting industries issues.

“The industries have been the main priority for the fifth phase government’s economic transformation and we think this workshop will help to push the government agenda,” Dr Mmari said.

He said the main target of the discussion was on how to strengthen institutional capacities to enable solid economic policies, even if there is a changing of government.

“We are targeting to review the institutional operation systems for both public and private sectors and look on the areas that need to be taken into consideration through the economic transformations,” he said.

The targeted institutions are those involved in training and skills development, legal and regulatory, judicial system, culture, traditions and norms as well those involved in international trade.

Invited guests during the workshop were former leaders and bureaucrats, researchers from Tanzania and abroad, government officials and public sector.

Dr. Blandina Kilama, senior official at REPOA said the workshop also reviewed the previous researches on industries in Tanzania since 1970s and how previous governments worked to create the country an industrial hub.

He said the main agenda of the workshop was to ally institutions to enable industries to prosper and how the idea will be allied into the five year development programme (2016-2021).

However, the issue of industrial financing has also been identified as a critical challenge that has caused an idea of industries to fail to materialize for many years.

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