By Alawi Masare
Dodoma
— The government has outlined five policy measures it has taken to
stimulate lowering of lending interest rates in Tanzania.
Deputy Minister for
Finance and Planning Dr Ashatu Kijaji also told the National Assembly
that the government will continue taking more measures to ensure further
decrease of the interest rates.
Dr Kijaji was
responding to a question asked by Mr Khatibu Haji (Konde -CUF) who
wanted to know steps taken by the government to reduce interest rates in
the banking sector.
"After taking some
policy measures, alredy some banks have positively responded by lowering
their interest rates," said Dr Kijaji mentioning CRDB bank, NMB Bank
and Banc ABC to have lowered the rates.
The meaures include
the use of credit reference bureau system; lowering of BoT short-term
loans to commercial banks to 6.89 per cent; lowering discount rates from
16 per cent to 9 per cent; reduving Statutory Minimum Reserves
Requirement from 10 per cent to 8 per cent; and paying of audited debts
to reduce non-perfoming loans.
Some MPs who asked
supplementary questions congratulated the efforts takenk and asked it to
ensure further reduction of the rates.
"The current interest decrease involves just loans to employees and we would like to see this reflected in trade loans.
"Loans issued by microfinance institutions are also still expensive and serve many Tanzanians," said Mr Haji.
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