China to support Tanzania 5G technology for digital economy drive

Dar es Salaam. Tanzania and China has reached agreement o cooperate in promoting the distribution of ICT across the country, with the latter assenting to assist in the adoption and development of new 5G technologies in the country.

This, they said, is one of the efforts to ensure Tanzania’s goal of building a Digital Economy is achieved to spur development and increase employment especially for young people through technological innovation.

The co-operation agreement was reached between the Minister for Information, Communications and Information Technology, Mr Nape Nnauye when he met and held talks with the Chinese Ambassador to Tanzania, Chen Mingjian in Dar es Salaam on Wednesday June 16.

The government recently showed its readiness to allow investment in the 5th generation (5G) network trials - the fastest ever – as a catalyst for its digital economy drive.

The move came as a sigh of relief for companies like Vodacom, which was quoted in 2020 as saying it targeted to invest in the 5G technology. It was just waiting for the regulatory approval, before it could start investing in 5G.

The talks also focused on deploying telecommunications services in inaccessible areas, especially in rural areas, where China agreed to continue cooperating with Tanzania to ensure that the goal is achieved.

"We will continue to motivate investors in the telecommunications sector in our country so that they can deliver these services as stated by the minister (Nnauye)," the Ambassador assured.

While acknowledging that the issue of cyber security poses a number of challenges that China has been facing every waking hour, Ambassador Chen stressed that they still see the need to work with Tanzania to ensure cyber security is guaranteed by setting the environment and infrastructure that will enable Tanzania to respond to cyber threats.

"Basically we have also agreed to further improve the issue of online security especially in the area of capacity building for our ICT experts, exchange technology programmes that will enable the development of cross-sectorial economic development sectors such as agriculture, health, internet business and so on," noted Mr Nnauye.

Meanwhile, China also agreed to support Tanzania in its bid for the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), while taking the opportunity to ask Tanzania to also support it in various aspiring positions.

The ambassador assured the minister that she would also send a message to other countries to support Tanzania in vying for the position which will see 13 African countries selected for ITU positions at the Bucharest conference in Romania to be held in September and October this year.