Local bank linked to SADC network

SUNDAY NEWS Reporter

TANZANIA Agricultural Development Bank Limited (TADB) has been officially consented as the new SADC Development Financial Institution (SADC - DFIs) network member officially on July 7, this year.

The Tanzanian state-owned Development Finance Institution (DFI) on agriculture, which is established to catalyse delivery of finance and related non-finance services and facilities to the agricultural sector in Tanzania, joined the network to utilise and contribute to SADC’s goals of economic growth and sustainable development among the member states.

The SADC DFI Network membership currently comprises 37 development finance institutions from 14 SADC countries. Speaking in Dar es Salaam this week, the acting Managing Director of the bank, Mr Francis Assenga, said that his bank is designed to address the national goals enshrined in the Tanzania Vision 2025.

The specific aim is to facilitate attainment of food self-sufficiency and food security; transformation of agriculture from subsistence to commercial, and bringing about economic development and poverty reduction He said joining the network assures Tanzania’s participation in SADC’s goals of economic growth and sustainable development through Industrialisation Strategy and Roadmap.

Mr Assenga said that at its Extra-Ordinary Summit, held on April 29, 2015, in Harare, Zimbabwe, the SADC Heads of State and Government adopted the SADC Industrialisation Strategy and Roadmap 2015 – 2063. “TADB needs to be part of the Industrialisation Strategy that was developed as an inclusive long-term modernisation and economic transformation scheme that enables substantive and sustained raising of living standards.

“It also aims at intensifying structural change and engendering a rapid catch up of the SADC countries with industrialising and developed countries,” he said. On his side, the Chief Executive Officer for Southern African Development Community - Development Finance Resource Center (SADC- DFRC), Mr Stuart Kufeni, said that joining of TADB will fulfil strategic target that outlines the need to link national and regional priorities.

This includes coordination of industrial policies towards convergence in the medium to long term as a way to ensure that all Member States benefit from SADC membership. Mr Kufeni said that the strategy sets out three potential growth paths – agro-processing; mineral beneficiation and downstream processing and industry - and service-driven value chains.

He added that the paths are mutually supporting and inclusive, encompassing the combination of downstream value addition and backward integration of the upstream provision of inputs, intermediate items and capital goods.

“A key focus of the SADC strategy is to develop targeted and selected industrial policies that create conditions that will enable higher rates of investment by the public and private sectors into economic infrastructure, which in turn will enable crucial sectors of the economy, particularly valueadding manufacturing, to grow,” Mr Kufeni said.