CHINA’s State Councillor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s visit to Tanzania and describing President John Magufuli as a visionary leader vividly shows the fifth phase government direction of enhancing key socioeconomic reforms, including human capital investment.
Arriving in the country for a two-day state visit on Thursday, Mr Wang’s presence shows how Chinese investments in Tanzania are a driving force towards industrialisation.
In his brief address, Mr Wang said there were over 200 Chinese companies at present, making investments and operating in Tanzania, adding that China was also the largest project contractor in Dar es Salaam with investments ranging from infrastructure, mining and agriculture to manufacturing, hotels, real estate and banks.
For instance, one of the Chinese companies in Tanzania, Huawei, which lays out a strategy in building a better connected Tanzania by improving and promoting information, communications and technology (ICT) knowledge and awareness to the government, academic institutions and members of the general public, as well as focusing on capacity building, infrastructure, policy and a legal framework and public relations activities, in one way or another facilitates the industrialisation in Tanzania.
China being the world’s second largest economy is making headway in creating skilled labour that is also facilitated by its advancements in Huawei ICT development, that once shared professionally Tanzania will realise the dream fast enough.
Flashing back recently in December last year, Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa commended Huawei Tanzania for improving ICT skills among Tanzanian students, saying the move will enable them to better utilise ICT skills to fuel the country’s social and economic growth.
In the event, three Tanzanian university students emerged as winners of the first prize at Huawei ICT Competition sub-Saharan Africa regional finals and three others scooped the second prize at global finals.
The premier urged local companies dealing with ICT to emulate Huawei’s programme aimed at improving ICT skills amongst the youths as the country embraced the digital economy.
Chinese Ambassador to Tanzania Wang Ke said: “I hope Huawei ICT competition continues searching for and train more ICT talents in Tanzania and through cooperation between our two governments and companies, Tanzania could boast more advanced ICT infrastructure.
“ICT industry, as the fundamental leading industry in the digital age, serves as an essential support to the digital transformation of all industries and leads the innovative development of the global economy.”
For his part, Huawei Tanzania Managing Director Frank Zhou said: “Huawei Tanzania is proud of being in the frontline in building a digital workforce, serving more than 35 per cent of Tanzania’s population since our establishment in 2007, created more than 1,000 jobs directly and indirectly, also provided training to more than 2,000 ICT engineers.
“We understand that digital development requires an important, economy-wide programme to equip Tanzania for the future. In this new era, ICT skills will be necessary for society, for organisations, and even more important for young people. That is why we have deeply invested in several initiatives especially local talent development.