Export value-added goods only: PM

Dar es Salaam. The Government clarified yesterday that it has not banned grain exports outright, but is only regulating the processes involved to ensure that such business does not undermine local needs.

Indeed, Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa gave directives this year for traders in Tanzania to export only value-added goods and not raw grains.

This is also one way of ensuring food security for the country. The Minister for Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries Development, Dr Charles Tizeba, said this when he was officiating at the 7th African Trade Summit of the East African Grain Council (EAGC), whose theme is ‘Setting New Horizons: Rethinking Grain Trade for Food Security and Prosperity in Africa.’

The Minister said that, while the Grain Council was advocating policies that allow trade between countries, it was nonetheless imperative that the government know show much is being exported. This is partly to ensure food security for the people. “If we don’t regulate grain exports, at the end of the day it becomes a burden for the government when it has to import food – and doing so at much higher prices,” Tizeba explained.

He stressed that if the government does not take measures – including sensitizing traders into selling value-added goods instead of selling them in the raw – the country would suffer food insecurity, as well as lose heavily on earnings. He also called upon delegates at the meeting to devise ways of ensuring that farmers are able to produce at low cost – and, therefore, this way reducing prices and the cost of living!

“The government has put in place incentives to reduce production costs, including scrapping certain tax and levies on farming, as well as enabling farmers to readily access affordable but good-quality seeds and fertilizers. For his part, the EAGC Board chairman Eugene Rwibasira, said the government should formulate friendly policies and incentives to boost grain production.

“Friendly policies, funds for research, infrastructure and markets are among the major catalysts that would enable nations on the African Continent effectively compete with developed countries,” the chairman pontificated.

In June, the government banned grain exports in a bid to stem rising local prices and rein in on inflation, as well as boost the country’s nascent food processing industry.