The Tanzanian government on Monday injected 94 million U.S. dollars into the country’s Tanzania Agriculture Development Bank (TADB) to help empower farmers.
The money, a soft loan from the African Development Bank (AfDB), is aimed at empowering the bank to have enough capital that will help it fulfill its main role of financially empowering small scale farmers and entrepreneurs to access loans and improve agro-processing, Francis Assenga, TADB Acting Managing Director, said in Dar es Salaam.
“This money is testimony to our commitment towards agricultural transformation because it is going to increase our operations,” he said during the signing ceremony of the deal.
He said the main challenge facing the agricultural sector was lack of access to finance, adding that the money acquired from the AfDB will be accessed by many farmers across the country, the second largest economy in the East African region.
Tanzania has been beneficiary of loans from the AfDB amounting to 284 million dollars between November and December 2016, out of which 94 million dollars is earmarked for agricultural development.
The loans were in line with AfDB’s program known as “Feeding Africa, Lighting-up Africa, Integrating Africa, Improving the African quality of life and industrializing Africa.”
TADB is a state-owned development finance institution established to catalyze delivery of credit facilities for development of agriculture in the country.
It is also dedicated to contributing significantly to the development of agriculture in Tanzania through mobilizing financial resources and supporting smallholder farmers with low-interest loans.
The bank is structured to deliver short, medium and long-term lending through refinancing, wholesale lending, direct lending, co-financing, syndications, leveraging guarantees and infrastructure financing to address financing gaps in the value chains of focus. Enditem
Source: Xinhua/NewsGhana.com.gh
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