Moshi — THE Administrative Support Unit (ASU) of Tanzania Coffee Research Institute (TaCRI) is committed to achieve major goals spelt out in Strategic Action Plan II (2008- 2O13).

According to the Programme Manager, Mr Hubert Lema, the move is meant to ensure financial sustainability and guarantee that assets and resources are secured and managed efficiently. Some 700m/- was disbursed by the central government to TaCRI to help support coffee seedlings multiplication.

He also said that the European Union has committed two million euros, which are funds to support coffee research activities for three years, between 2010 and 2013. "The first year of funding from the European Commission, under Trade and Agriculture Support Programme, became operational and a total of 1.2 m/- was disbursed in June 2010," Mr Lema revealed.

He also added that support will contribute immensely to implement Phase Two of the Strategic Action Plan which ends this year. The Programme Manager also revealed that there was a commitment of 900m/- from Stabilization of Exports (STABEX) balances for phase one of rehabilitation of various infrastructure facilities at TaCRI.

Mr Lema revealed that the performance of the Endowment Fund for TaCRI , which was established in 2007, has not been very impressive due to the world economic crisis. However, he said there has been a positive growth of the portfolio since the second half of 2010, in which the central government support from its budgetary allocation for seedlings multiplication and subvention for the year was 980m/- which was fully disbursed.

He said revenue realized from TaCRI's own resources, that is from soil analysis, coffee sales and coffee seedlings, was 40 per cent of the projected sum, attributing the reason for the shortfall to unfavourable weather conditions experienced during the cropping season.

Mr Lema said coffee stakeholders continue to contribute 0.75 per cent of the auction price towards coffee research activities, adding that investment of cess working balance in short term fixed deposits and treasury bills generated 50.6 per cent of the projected revenue due to low levels of investment.