Swiss investments to Tanzania fall
Switzerland has dropped 12 places in two years from being the 10th ranking investor in Tanzania to position 22 last year, according to Tanzania Investment Centre (TIC) executive director Emmanuel Ole Naiko.
He made the revelation on Tuesday in Dar es Salaam at an exhibition held as part of the Swiss Day celebrations in Tanzania.
“Until 2006, Switzerland was occupying the 10th position with 38 projects worth $68 million. However, of late Switzerland has been overtaken by some other economies and therefore by the end of 2008, it was occupying position 22 with 52 projects,” Mr Ole Naiko told a gathering comprising of the Swiss ambassador to Tanzania, Mr Adrian Schlapfer.
He did not give reasons behind the slowdown in Swiss investment inflows in the country but said he was optimistic that soon Swiss investors will renew their investment interest in Tanzania.
“We trust with today’s rekindling of our “partnership” we shall see more Swiss projects established in Tanzania,” he said.
A World Bank report this year said Tanzania has lost some ground in being a conducive business environment for doing business dropping to position 131 from last year’s 127th ranking. The slip prompted the government to immediately form a team to help rectify the situation, which Mr Ole Naiko said has begun dealing with the issues highlighted in the World Bank’s Doing Business 2010 report.
Among other things, the September report said Tanzania is being let down by the government?s reluctance to make business-friendly reforms. Mr Ole Naiko said the government is determined reverse the trend and restoring Tanzania?s reputation of being rated as among the top ten reformers in 2006.
“The Doing Business Report 2010 gave us a wakeup call. As a result the Government has formed a taskforce to review each of the pillars stated in the report. The objective here is to assign each Government Department with respective responsibilities to rectify the deficiencies, within a certain time frame work during this financial year,” he asserted.
“Our objective is to reduce the cost of Doing Business from three digits to two digits and eventually one digit to retain the position we had in 2006 as one of the top 10 reformers. The Second special Taskforce meeting will be held November 12, 2009 to review the progress,” he said.
Source – The citizen