TANZANIA has stepped up the state’s financial support to the agriculture sector, which at the moment is clocking 1 trillion/-, according to the Bank of Tanzania (BoT) Governor, Professor Benno Ndulu.“Although it is still low, the share of lending to agriculture to total lending to private sector by the banks has increased from the average 9.6 per cent in 2008 to nearly 12 per cent by the end of 2013, against the backdrop of rapidly expanding total credit to the private sector,” stated Prof Ndulu.
Speaking at the ongoing 17th Conference of Financial Institutions (COFI) taking place at the Arusha International Conference Centre (AICC) here, the central bank chief pointed out that in absolute terms, credit to agriculture increased from an average 700 billion/- in 2008 to over one trillion/- at the end of last year.
The theme of this year’s conference is ‘Financing Agriculture and Agribusiness in Tanzania: Challenges and Opportunities’ and reflects the need to increase financial resources to agriculture, which was stated during the event to be the major activity of the majority of Tanzanians.
To that effect, therefore, Governor Ndulu pointed out that the government has already made significant strides in providing financing to medium and large-scale agriculture through guarantee schemes operated by the BoT and ‘Kilimo Kwanza’ initiatives.
“Local financial institutions have also played a sizeable role in this endeavour,” he noted, adding that more efforts were being made to ensure that more grants are pumped into the farmers’ coffers to boost productivity.
The Vice-President, Dr Mohamed Gharib Bilal, officially opened the conference and stated that the importance of agriculture cannot be underestimated on that the sector accounts for 30 per cent of export earnings and about 25 per cent of the Nation’s Gross Domestic Product.
“And when looked in real terms, the sector provides backward and forward sectoral linkages and is key in controlling inflation, because food contributes about 44 per cent of the total consumer’s expenditures,” pointed out Dr Bilal.
COFI is a biennial forum that was created by the BoT in 1980.
The conferences bring together heads of financial institutions and other stakeholders to exchange views and experiences on matters related and relevant to the financial system and the country’s economy.
