Italian investors target industrial sector

President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, with his host Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, inspects a guard of honor shortly after the President arrived at the Premier`s offices in Rome for official talks yesterday evening. (Photo: Freddy Maro).

Italy has agreed to invest heavily in the garments, wine-making, hides and furniture industries in Tanzania as a way of consolidating trade links between the two countries which is extremely low.

It has also shown keen interest in investing in milk processing and the telecommunications sector.

The commitment and expression of interest are among the highlights of remarks by Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi when he held official talks with President Jakaya Kikwete here yesterday.

The Italian leader stated that the two countries` diplomatic relations were excellent but their trade links were on the weak side and would benefit from a strategic push forward.

He explained that his country would help Tanzania in putting up industries that would invigorate the latter`s social and economic development, in part by creating job opportunities for the people.

Prodi also described the move as a sure way of reviving the business and trade relations between the two countries.

With the fourth-phase Kikwete government having promised to create one million jobs by 2010, the Italian government's decision has come at a most opportune moment.

The relevance of the Italian assistance partly also lies in the fact that Tanzania is home to more than 90 million head of cattle and millions of other livestock.

It also has large tracts of fertile land, many virgin or lying fallow, where quality grapes and a host of other food and cash crops can thrive.

In his address, Prodi said Italian Foreign Trade minister Emma Bonnio would visit Tanzania at the end of this year to discuss further with the country's authorities on how Italy could conveniently invest in the sectors in question.

The Prime Minister added that he would early next year lead a delegation of 100 Italian businessmen to Tanzania to explore further investment avenues.

Prodi and Kikwete, who left Dar es Salaam on Monday for a weeklong official visit to Italy and France, also held lengthy talks on the security and political situation in Somalia, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Sudan's Darfur region.

Tanzania and Italy are members of Somali Contact Group, which brings together countries seeking to restore peace and tranquillity in war-ravaged Somalia.

Other Group members are Egypt, France, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, the EU, the UK, the United Arab Emirates, and the US.

This is the second time President Kikwete and Prime Minister Prodi have met, the first being at the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa early this year.

In talks with Bonnio earlier yesterday, President Kikwete called on the minister to talk members of the Italian business community into investing in the tourism industry and other sectors in Tanzania. He said conditions guaranteeing such ventures resounding success were already in place.

The President noted that some Italian companies have for years been operating tourist hotels in Zanzibar and urged the respective investors to cover the Mainland as well, saying it too has abundant investment potential.

President Kikwete told the minister that Italy could also rewardingly invest in the mining sector because Tanzania is renowned for its huge deposits of minerals and gemstones, including tanzanite.

Responding to the President`s remarks, minister Bonnio said her country was also exploring the possibility of investing in the small and medium enterprises in Tanzania alongside the mainstream sectors.

President Kikwete is accompanied on his European tour by Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation minister Bernard Membe, Agriculture and Food Security minister Steven Wassira, Zanzibar Tourism, Trade and Investment minister Samia Hassan, and the Permanent Secretary to the Industry, Trade and Marketing ministry, Dr Stegomena Tax.