STANDARD Chartered Bank has great prospects for growth in Tanzania due to robust economy, the bank’s CEO for Africa and Middle East, Sunil Kaushal has said.
He told the Daily News in an exclusive
interview that Tanzania, with about seven per cent growth rate last
year, was among a few bright spot for their operations in Africa and
hence a priority market.
“We are upbeat about prospects in Africa
and Tanzania,” said Mr Kaushal who led a team of over 30 managers of
the bank’s operations in Africa and Asia who visited the country to meet
bank’s stakeholders and government authorities as part of activities to
mark 100 years of operation in Tanzania.
Tanzania is ranked the second fastest
growing economy in Africa after Ivory Coast driven by gold production
and tourism. The East African second largest economy is implementing
ambitious mega infrastructure projects as part of plans to transforming
the country into a regional transport and trade hub.
The mega projects include construction
of standard gauge railway whose first phase from Dar es Salaam to
Morogoro is about to start after contract has been awarded to a
consortium of a Turkish construction group Yapi Merkezi and Portuguese
construction group Mota-Engil.
Tanzania and Uganda are also preparing
for construction of a 1,403 kilometre pipeline to transport crude oil
from Hoima in Uganda to Tanga Port which is going to cost about US $4
billion dollars (about 8.7 trillion/-).
The project expected to be completed by
June 2020. Other mega infrastructure projects include construction of a
flyover at the junction of the Nelson Mandela Expressway and Nyerere
Road in Dar es Salaam which had reached ahead of its completion on
October 2018 and Ubungo interchange project whose foundation stone was
laid last Monday.
Tanzania will also land World Bank $2.4
billion concession loan over the next three years to finance
infrastructure projects. Mr Kaushal said strong economic growth, mega
infrastructure projects, rapid population growth and rapid urbanization
was making Tanzania an exception market for their operations.
He said it was because of the unique
status, Tanzania was a priority market in Africa and that was why a team
of senior managers of the bank’s operations in Africa and Asia visited
the country to learn more about the situation and be able to make
optimal use of the potential of the country. “It is a great market for
Standard Chartered Group and obvious a priority market.
The team came here to understand the underlying dimension.
They met many stakeholders to try to learn their growth perspectives so that we can partner more effectively,” he said.
StanChart Tanzania, a subsidiary of UK’s
Standard Chartered Bank Group, opened its doors in Tanzania in 1917 and
was nationalized in 1967 before making a comeback in 1993. It is the
fourth largest bank in term of balance sheet, according to Bank of
Tanzania data.
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