PRIVATE Agricultural Sector Support (PASS) Trust had impressive performance averaging a record of over 300 per cent above target in the first three quarters of this year.
The trust’s latest released report shows
that the organisation approved agricultural projects valued at over
92bn/-, which is 88 per cent of the target of about 105bn/- over the
period. But, the trust surpassed by far the target of preparing 372
business plans, writing 1,973 plans instead, the 530 per cent
achievement.
“We have had an impressive year (2017)
and we look forward to surpass our annual operational targets by the
year end,” PASS Managing Director Nicomed Bohay said in Dar es Salaam,
yesterday.
He credited the success to the
organisation’s intensified efforts to expand outreach to ensure more
peasants, especially in rural areas, have access to affordable and
reliable financing. In the past nine-month period, PASS had Arusha,
Mbeya, Morogoro and Mtwara as the top four loan recipients, with 35bn/-,
22bn/-, 18bn/- and 11bn/-, respectively.
In Mtwara 1,650 business plans were
written mostly for the cashew nuts growers. The target, however, was to
guarantee 15.3bn/- loans to the cashew producers in the region. The
funded projects, Mr Bohay said, created 19,484 jobs for mostly
Tanzanians, with crop production’s 19,366 opportunities topping the
list.
Other sectors with their number of jobs
in brackets are crop trading (69), mechanisation (18) and livestock
(14), agro-processing (11) and input trading (six).
“We look forward to work more closely
with our partner commercial banks to help all community banks in the
country to access affordable credits for investments in farming
activities,” said Mr Bohay, expressing hopes on better performance in
the final quarter.
PASS has just signed a 20 million US
dollar (about 45bn/-) Guarantee Agreement with the Swedish government
through SIDA, attracting commercial banks to increase funding to
agriculture. The National Microfinance Bank (NMB) and CRDB Bank
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