EDITORIAL: DAR TRADE FAIR GROWING FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH
On Monday, July 5, President Samia Suluhu Hassan will officially inaugurate the Dar es Salaam International Trade Fair (DITF) at the Mwalimu Julius Nyerere ‘Saba Saba’ grounds in the commercial capital.
DITF-2021 is the 45th trade fair in the annual series, and will be President Hassan’s first inauguration of the event since she became Head of State on March 19, 2021: Tanzania’s first-ever female President-cum-Head of State.
The 16-day DITF opened for business on June 28, with ‘Industrial Economy for Sustainable Employment’ being its theme. It ends on July 13.
DITF-2021 is historic in ways more than one. For example, the facility will use the country’s first commodities exchange - the Tanzania Mercantile Exchange (TMX) - to enable farmers, traders and other market actors to readily access domestic and export markets.
DITF provides an almost unique multi-sectoral international platform for trading in assorted goods and services from within and outside Tanzania.
This year’s DITF edition is historic in ways more than one. For example, its organisers plan to launch a Tanzania Spice Label, an online shop, and a trailer manufactured by the Kilimanjaro Machine Tools Company.
As we reported in these pages on July first and second this year, innovative products at the show include a special oxygen ventilator for sufferers from poor respiration conditions like asthma and the viral Covid-19 pandemic, as well as a special bed that’s friendly to spine, backbone and waist sufferers.
This is to say nothing of the assorted trade deals reached at the show grounds, as well as the growing numbers of exhibitors, despite disasters the likes of Covid-19. DITF-2021 has attracted 2,926 local and 76 foreign exhibitors, 32 of the latter from China alone
MAY THE BETTER TEAM WIN THE DERBY
Football fans will today – starting at 5pm – witness another eagerly-awaited soccer match between Young Africans (Yanga) and Simba sports clubs at the Benjamin Mkapa Stadium in Dar es Salaam, dubbed the ‘Kariakoo Derby.’
The match was initially scheduled for last May 8, but its start was controversially delayed early that day by the Tanzania Football Federation (TFF) and the Tanzania Premier League Board (TPLB).
This tarnished the country’s footballing image, especially in the eyes of local and foreign spectators who had already paid for and travelled to the city to watch the match.
By changing the kick-off time from 5pm to 7pm (albeit) the same day, TFF and TPLB violated regulations requiring changes in match kick-off times to be announced at least 24 hours before. Hence this call upon our sports bodies and their leaders to avoid such embarrassing blunders in the future.
In any case, today’s match is bound to attract much attention if only because the two clubs are traditional rivals in the world’s greatest spectator sport, and their fans want to witness first-hand the second clash of the nation’s two soccer footballing titans in the ongoing Vodacom Premier League.
Hopefully, the authorities will not defer the clash again this time round and may the better team win the day, we say.
