Indian bank to set up business in Dar

By The guardian reporter

  India�s public sector lender, Canara Bank, plans to expand its overseas operations by setting up a branch in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

 Rajiv Dubey, Canara Bank Chairman, said the bank has already obtained the necessary regulatory approvals in the country.

 

“We have received approval from the Bank of Tanzania to ...open our first branch in Tanzania. Our officials were in Dar es Salaam to finalise the location and building,” said Dubey.

 

According to him, capital is one of their major challenge but they are optimistic they will raise the required capital in India.

 

Dubey, who is also the bank’s managing director, pointed out that they are looking for opportunities in the agriculture sector seeing that the mining sector seems saturated.

 

He said the branch in Dar es Salaam will allow them to play a greater role in the growing trade and investment opportunities between Tanzania and India.

 

The bank foresees heightened bilateral activity between the two countries, adding that with the opening of the branch, Canara Bank is strategically poised to take advantage of the increased opportunities.

 

Canara Bank would use its experience of lending in a huge agro economy like India to employ that in Tanzania and other countries in the region, he emphasised.

 

Tanzania has 55 banks, where commercial banks are slightly over 30. Others are community banks, microfinance banks and development banks.

 

In addition to Tanzania, the bank has branches in South Africa, Dubai, Brazil, Japan, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, New York, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Singapore.

 

Headquarters in Bangalore, Karnataka, Canara Bank is one of India’s foremost banks with 3,800 branches in India. It hopes to achieve a milestone of 5,000 branches in this year.

 

The bilateral trade between Tanzania and India has grown to US$3.7bn/- in 2014 from US$3.2bn/- in 2013.

 

Exports from Tanzania to India rose by 35 per cent to US$1.3bn/- in 2014 from US$0.78bn/- in 2013 or 14 per cent of the total exported in 2013.

 

Imports from India to Tanzania reached about US$2.4bn/- or 20 per cent of the total imported in the last two years with the Asian country being the largest source of imports in the continent and the second largest in the world after South Africa.

SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN