President Samia Suluhu Hassan yesterday rallied for investors, development partners and African leaders to cultivate a close cooperation in an effort to find a lasting solution to investment challenges facing the continent.
President Hassan said this yesterday when she addressed a meeting of stakeholders for the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland.
The Tanzanian president is in Davos-Klosters where she is attending the 2023 annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF).
“The President emphasised on the need to foster cooperation among stakeholders [investors, development partners and African leaders] and come up with solutions to investment challenges facing Africa in order to raise productivity in the continent,” reads a statement from the State House’s Directorate of Presidential Communications.
According to the statement, the President was addressing the investors, development partners and some African leaders during an AfCFTA conference which was part of the ongoing 2023 WEF annual meeting.
Tanzania is putting emphasis on four main issues during its attendance of the five-day WEF meeting which started on Monday, January 16, 2023.
The director of Presidential Communications, Ms Zuhura Yunus, told The Citizen on Monday that restarting global cooperation ranks high on the issues that Tanzania was putting emphasis on as President Hassan, who is touted for her business-friendly policies, attends the event.
Additionally, Tanzania will participate in a workshop on the Food Action Alliance: Investing in Greater Resilience, present its strategy, and take part in a plenary discussion on powering the world.
In September last year, President Hassan, who is also the champion of the AfCFTA, rallied African policymakers for a continental protocol, specially addressing the protection of women from harassment and other barriers.
President Hassan, who has initiated a number of reforms to improve Tanzania’s business climate since she ascended to power on March 19, 2021, told a gathering of African women leaders in Dar es Salaam in September last year that the continent must give priority to girls’ education in addition to eliminating barriers that hinder women from cross-border trade.
“When our people approach regional or international markets, they encounter too many permits, licensing and other such requirements. If the whole of Africa works to remove all these non-tariff barriers then business will grow all-around,” said President Hassan.
During yesterday’s meeting in Davos-Klosters, President Hassan, along with other African leaders and global CEOs backed the launch of the first of its kind report on how public-private partnerships can support the implementation of the AfCFTA.
Titled ‘AfCFTA: A New Era for Global Business and Investment in Africa’, the report outlines high-potential sectors, initiatives to support business and investment, operational tools to facilitate the AfCFTA, and illustrative examples from successful businesses in Africa to guide businesses in entering and expanding in the area, according to information posted on the WEF website yesterday.
It aims to provide a pathway for global businesses and investors to understand the biggest trends, opportunities and strategies to successfully invest and achieve high returns in Africa, developing local, subregional and continental value chains and accelerating industrialisation, all of which go hand in hand with the success of the AfCFTA.
The AfCFTA is the largest free trade area in the world, by area and number of participating countries. Once fully implemented, it will be the fifth-largest economy in the world, with the potential to have a combined Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of more than $3.4 trillion. Conceived in 2018, it now has 54 national economies in Africa and can attract billions in foreign investment, boost overseas exports by a third, double intra-continental trade, raise incomes by eight percent and lift 50 million people out of poverty.
The report focuses on four key sectors that have a combined worth of $130 billion and represent high-potential opportunities for companies looking to invest in Africa’s automotive, agriculture and agroprocessing; pharmaceuticals, and transport and logistics.
“Macro trends in the four key sectors and across Africa’s growth potential reveal tremendous opportunities for business expansion as population, income and connectivity are on the rise,” said Wamkele Mene, Secretary-General of the AfCFTA Secretariat.
Meanwhile, President Hassan said yesterday that Tanzania’s agriculture sector would grow at a rate of 10 percent by 2030, up from the current growth of around 3.6 percent, thanks to her administration’s ambitious plan to transform the sector.
Speaking as a panellist at a session on ‘Food Partnership: Investing in Greater Resilience’, President Hassan said Tanzania has developed a national pathway for food system transformation which is expected to strengthen local production, improve livelihoods as well as help climate change mitigation and adoption.
