How Tanzania is India’s gateway to East Africa

In a recent visit to the country, Indian secretary for Economic Relations from the ministry of External Affairs Mr Dammu Ravir said Tanzania is considered a strategic point for East African relations with India.

Apart from its shared historical relationship, he said the country also harbors inviting facilities such as ports, manufacturing industries, human power and policies for foreign investments.

The Citizen’s reporter Josephine Christopher spoke with the Indian envoy in Dar es Salaam recently and shares more on the development partnerships between the two countries; Read on…

India has emerged as one of the major development partners with Tanzania, Tell us about the growing trade and people-to-people ties between India and Tanzania?

Tanzania and India trade and economic relationship dates back to 200 years ago, and post-independence countries’ leadership after they all had the common struggle of colonial period maintained close relations. Now, in this 21st century, our relationship has evolved even further, taking more of an economic dimension.

India and Tanzania have bilateral trade of $4.5 billion. And, it is very pleasing to know that the trade is evenly balanced. So we also import a lot of items from Tanzania as much as we export to Tanzania.

The Indian investments in Tanzania have now reached $3.6 billion and these are in different areas; the investments are creating nearly 60,000 jobs and we have several Indian companies which have a very strong presence here.

We are encouraging small and medium scale entrepreneurs to be also actively involved in Tanzania, particularly in the manufacturing area.

So, during my visit, I will be discussing with my counterpart. The permanent secretaries of both foreign affairs, and economic relationship to discuss the possibilities of setting up exclusively India’s Special Economic Zones (SEZ) to do manufacturing activity here, that’s our objective.

We will also look at pharmaceuticals, because India is very well known for pharmaceutical products and medicines. So we want to bring Indian companies to do those activities in Tanzania and in a win-win situation.

It will be good for both of us because when our companies come, they will do joint ventures, collaborations with Tanzanian entrepreneurs, and create jobs and value addition to products.

What are the key components in strategic, economic and cultural cooperation between India and Tanzania?

I think, in my view, there is a lot of scope for doing many things, but it’s important that we focus on areas where we have strength.

For example, in the manufacturing sector, we are very strong in components like engineering products, machine tools, pharmaceuticals and medical devices. All this can be actually made here.

So, if we create SEZ’s for India, then Indian companies will come here to do that activity. We would like to look at Tanzania as the gateway for East Africa. That is the objective here.

You have excellent Port facilities, you are a peaceful country, politically very stable and you are a very welcoming country for investments. So we are positively looking at these developments that encourage our companies to come here to do these activities.

What do you think are the sunshine sectors for Tanzanians in India, key sectors that they can take opportunities on?

There are a lot of Tanzanians who go to India for training purposes. India offers about 700 training scholarships every year, in various fields.

They go to India for technical education, medical and they come back here and provide value to the economic activity. Under the Indian technical economic cooperation program, 5,000 Tanzanian nationals have been trained so far.

I believe the opportunity we would like to create and see for mutually beneficial partnership is in setting up institutions here, technical educational institutions like in engineering.

We want to set up an Indian Institute of Technology. This is a premier institution of India, which we want to bring to Tanzania.

The High Commissioner is already talking with the government officials to set up this institute and we hope this will also become an important contribution for bilateral relations and create a win-win situation for both of us.

What is the modality of Indian investments in the Tanzanian key sectors like health, especially with respect to the pharmaceutical companies?

So covid-19 Pandemic has already in a way indicated, the necessity and need for developing countries to cooperate more closely in the healthcare sector and that is very important because we don’t know in future what kind of health crisis will affect countries like ours.

We believe we have to be active in the medical care area of our two countries.There are many ideas of cooperation in the medical area but we’ll have to see how we can take them forward.

For example, digitally enabled products in India have been extensively successful, medical digital applications have been very effective. Telemedicine is one area where we can look at doing cooperation with Tanzania.

So, we will explore these options more closely. I will be talking about these two, to your government officials and give my ideas and seek their consideration and their support.

How is India helping Tanzania develop technical and professional skills in the area of medicine and technology?

To be honest the scope is enormous, but we’ll have to see how much Tanzania will be able to be a recipient and be able to accept those ideas. For example, in India, we have a very successfully introduced digitally enabled health insurance scheme, every Indian today is mapped. So through that we are able to provide Healthcare Services more effectively.

Now, on such an idea being implemented here, we require big planning and we also need to work with the Tanzanian government. If this idea can be acceptable by the government here, then we will send a medical team to talk with government officials and then we start working on that.

Climate change is one of the major issues at the moment, and has affected Tanzania greatly with change in rain patterns, causing drought in some parts of the country, are there any environmental protection projects in place?

Combating climate change, in India the Prime Minister has given a very clear direction that we should maintain sustainable lifestyles. We are also working on renewable energies, we are creating massive capacities in the renewable energy sector, solar in particular, wind and hydro. And in the Solar, we have done very big.

So, that is where Tanzania can come in. I believe, Tanzania is under the International Solar Alliance (ISA) which has at least 100 countries. Under that alliance, we can do a lot of solar energy projects in Tanzania.

Our idea is that we should scale it up. You also have a lot of sunlight, just like in India. So we should be able to take advantage of this sunlight that nature has given us. We need to create large solar parks, we can do collaborations with Tanzania and then also sell the energy that comes out at a cheaper price. The second area we can cooperate is actually millets.

As a food crop, it’s a very good crop in India, It could be another area where our two countries can collaborate because you and I both are in semi-arid areas. It can be easily grown and in a solution for food security problems that the world is facing.

On drinking water, we have already collaborated with Tanzania, I think under aid from India, we have created a billion dollars’ worth of drinking water facilities and some of which has been completed.

What are the key challenges facing India and Tanzania economic partnership, what can be done to counter such issues?

Well, I think of challenges in a mindset. We have to keep engaging with each other. Sometimes our own businesses perhaps are not fully aware, so we have to educate them, and tell them; Look, this is an area for you to really go there, and look at that.

So many Indians are already here, but we want more manufacturing to happen, so awareness building is a challenge.

So how do I convince Indian manufacturers, companies to come here, as there are a number of countries within Africa. So how do we bring focus on Tanzania as a priority country? That will be a challenge for us.

The Second challenge as I see is financing, you know, the funding arrangements. So we have to talk to our banks in India and our banks who are also here to provide that funding facility for Indian companies to come and operate.

The third thing, as I see it, is the response of your own leadership, how we want you to respond positively and provide the facility faster. If, for example, what I had in mind was the Indian SEZ. So, when we discuss this proposal we would like to see a positive response so that we can start working on that.

So, in a broader context, challenges will always be there when you want to take the relationship to a new level. But we have to keep talking and my visit is part of many visits.

Cooperation is very strong between our two countries. So challenges in any relationship will always be there, we have to remain focused on the objectives.