Tanzania, India for stronger tech ties ahead of exhibition

What you need to know:

  • The two-day exhibition that it will focus on areas of technological cooperation between the two countries and strengthen business partnership.

Dar es Salaam. At least 90 Indian firms are set to hold an exhibition in Dar es salaam to showcase various technologies as they seek market for their products in Tanzania.

The Indian Engineering Exhibition (Indee) that starts today will showcase mechanical, agriculture and hardware technologies.

India is among Tanzania’s top trading partners and the two countries are closely working to strengthen the bilateral trade.

India’s High Commissioner to Tanzania Binaya Pradhan said during a media briefing on the two-day exhibition that it will focus on areas of technological cooperation between the two countries.

The event also saw the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between India and Tanzania government through the chairman of the Chambers of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture (TCCIA)to strengthen business partnership.

“We decided to hold the exhibition in the country because Tanzania has a substantial share in India’s engineering exports to East Africa which rose from 22 per cent during the 2020/2021 fiscal year to 27 per cent in 2021/22,” he said.

According to him, the construction machinery were few of the leading Indian engineering products exported to Tanzania.

“Tanzania needs cost effective technologies to spur its export arm and access more foreign markets,” said Mr Pradhan in the city yesterday.

Exhibitors will represent 28 engineering products groups in the categories of electrical machinery, motor vehicles, agriculture equipment, articles of iron and steel, electrical machinery and equipment.

TCCIA chairman Paul Koyi noted that Tanzania required to adopt every type of technology in order to make bigger development strides and export more of its manufactured products as demanded in the global market.

The projection is that in the next two years Tanzania will have a gross domestic product (GDP) of $76 billion, it will therefore need to strengthen its cooperation with partners, particularly in the area of technology.

Mr Koyi said it was on that basis that Tanzania will work with India to develop and expand the country’s 90 per cent of its technology.

India’s Engineering Export Promotion Council (EEPC) chairman Maheshi Desai said his country was stagging the 42nd exhibition for the first time in Tanzania.

“India is among the top five trade partners with Tanzania with a significant share in the import basket, hence India already has a considerable presence in the country’s engineering import basket,” Mr Desai said.

Data shows that India exported goods worth $1.4 billion to Tanzania while importing goods valued at $891 million in 2020.