East Africa: Zimbabwe Traders Target Tanzania, East Africa Market

Tanzania’s market, with close to 50 million consumers, has caught the attention of Zimbabwe investors who now plan to grab the opportunities to boost intraregional trade.

A recent survey by Zim Trade reveals Tanzania market presents an opportunity for locally manufactured products in pharmaceuticals, agricultural supplies, construction, engineering, safari clothing and footwear, Zimbabwe’s daily newspaper, The Herald reported.

According to the findings, Tanzania’s pharmaceutical market has an annual budget of more than 500m US dollars and the investors are now planning to venture into the market with pharmaceutical products basing on the findings that Tanzania and Zimbabwe have more or less similar disease pattern.

While disseminating the results to local companies in both Harare and Bulawayo, Africa Corporate Adivisors Director, Malverin Rusike underscored the need to tap into the sector. “We have the capacity to tap into the Tanzanian market pharmaceuticals sector and this is the time to do so.

Our local companies could engage key buying institutions such as the Medical Stores Department (MSD) which has a 60 per cent market share,” he said. Opportunities were also identified in the agricultural sector, which is largely subsistence but contributes more than 25 per cent to the economic output.

ZimTrade Chief Executive Officer, Ms Sithembile Pilime, urged local companies in Zimbabwe to venture into Tanzania’s market taking advantage of the country’s booming economy.

Tanzania’s economy is expected to grow by 20 basis points to 7.4 per cent in 2017, the Central Bank said in its recent monetary policy statement. According to the Central Bank the growth will be driven by construction, communications and finance. The country is experiencing increased real estate development for residential and non-residential purposes and building of road networks.

According to bank’s monetary policy statement, the use of mobile services continues to register strong growth for the ICT sector. Meanwhile, increased levels of financial intermediation is aiding to the growth in the banking and insurance industry.

In 2015, East Africa’s second largest economy registered a growth of 7 per cent same as the growth registered in 2014.

Source: All Africa

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of TradeMark Africa.