Grant to boost agriculture #tanzania

THE country's agriculture sector will get 60 million US
dollars (about 100bn/-) in investment guarantees from
World Bank's Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency
(MIGA) to boost growth and tame poverty.
MIGA Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer, Michel
Wormser said in Dar es Salaam on Thursday that the
agency will partner with the United States government
agency, Overseas Private Investment Corp to boost foreign
direct investment into the sector.
"In our talks with government officials since arrival, there is
an urge to improve agriculture which will have a big impact
to the economy," said Mr Wormser, who was in the country
for two days.
He said that although the country's economy has been
steadily growing at an average of 7 per cent per annum in
the past three to five years, the majority of the people are
yet to feel the impact of such a development due to slow
growth in agriculture.
"What MIGA can do in this case is help the government by
bringing foreign investment and create jobs in the
agriculture sector which touches on many people's lives in
this country," said Wormser.
He revealed that Tanzania is one of the 13 Sub Sahara
African countries which will benefit from a close to 400
million US dollar funding set up by OPIC and backed up by
MIGA.
"What Tanzania needs now is acceleration of growth and
also diversification," the MIGA chief noted saying rapid
growth of agriculture will likely have an economic impact
on the majority poor who live in rural areas where farming
is a main occupation.
Wormser pointed out that MIGA which has backed a few
investments worth 185 million US dollars has been
underutilized in the country, but expressed hope that there
is growing interest from both the public and private sectors.
"Now there is more interest coming especially in
infrastructure development, energy and transport," he noted.
MIGA was created in 1988 to promote developmentally
beneficial foreign direct investment into emerging
economies by insuring investments against political risks
such as expropriation, breach of contract, war and civil
disturbance.
OPIC and MIGA announced last June that they would create
a 350 million US dollar political risk facility to support
agribusiness investments in sub-Saharan Africa.
OPIC will provide the political risk coverage and MIGA will
take on 60 per cent of the risk of each investment made by
the Silverlands Fund, a private equity fund that focuses on
agribusiness in several sub-Saharan African countries,
their joint statement said.
The statement further noted that Silverlands Fund plans to
reach 500,000 farmers in the next 10 years by investing in
agribusinesses that work in parts of the fruit, grains, soya,
sugar, poultry and livestock value chains.