|
|
Southern Africa: Shein's Call On SADC Exports
 |
|
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)
7 May 2008
Posted to the web 7 May 2008
Michael Kimaro
Southern African countries were yesterday urged to export value added products in order to benefit from rising global trade volumes.
Vice President Dr. Ali Mohamed Shein issued thus appeal yesterday, saying that Southern African countries must abandon the current trend of exporting raw materials, saying the trend was crippling development in the region.
In his opening speech to the launch of an agro-industry workshop organised by the EU-SADC Investment Promotion Programme (ESIPP), Dr. Shein asserted that economic prosperity in African countries will only be achieved through exportation of finished products.
He said exportation of raw materials has been taking root in Tanzania, with 98 per cent of cashewnuts and 80 per cent of cotton exported in raw form as well as other commodities. This is negative since most produce is exported raw, he said.
There is an urgent need for Tanzania to shift its emphasis from producing raw commodities for domestic consumption and for export to putting more emphasis on value addition and processing of commodities for both the domestic and foreign markets.
"The agro-industry sector is a critically important sector for Tanzania and the Southern Africa region in general But is equally important for Tanzania in particular as more than 80 per cent of the population directly and indirectly depends on this sector," he said.
Earlier, the European Commission welcomed Agro-Industry 2008 work as a major international event for businesses inSouthern Africa countries, with intent to improve trade between EU and the SADC region.
Douglas Carpenter, the EC's Head of Economic Affairs, said in his remarks that the event underlined the link between business growth especially for small and medium-sized enterprises, and poverty reduction goals in the region.
The European Commission also expressed its hope that the agro-industry conference would address the multidimensional challenges faced by the business sector in the region, including governance and trade facilitation issues as well as longstanding concerns on infrastructure and the fiscal environment.
|
ESIPP is an EU (European Union) - SADC (Southern Africa Development Community) partnership programme for the promotion of investment and technology flows to enterprises operating within key growth sectors in the SADC member states.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Copyright © 2008 The Citizen. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Make allAfrica.com your home page | RSS Feed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top | Site Guide | Who We Are | Advertising | Search | Subscribe | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Questions or Comments? Contact us. Read our Privacy Statement. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
