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Tanzania and China


(Image from this website)


(Image from this website)

According to this article, China has been investing in Tanzania for a few decades now, and Tanzania plans on working more with China in the near future given recent concerns of global economic slowdown.

Some excerpts:

"Tanzania is looking to China for help to spur economic growth amid the global crisis. Central Bank Governor Benno Ndulu has said spending cuts may be needed because of pressure on foreign aid, which covered 34 percent of the 7.22 trillion shilling ($5.5 billion) budget this year. China's trade with Tanzania rose 30 percent in 2007 to $688 million.

... Economic cooperation with Tanzania dates back to the early 1970s when China built the $500 million Tazara railroad that runs 1,860 kilometers (1,162 miles) from Zambia's northern copper-belt region to the port of Dar es Salaam. Chinese aid also supported a textile factory that helped start a once-thriving industry now under pressure to compete with cheap garment imports from southeast Asia and a growing second-hand clothing market.

... China is a top importer of Tanzania's timber, a state- regulated trade plagued by corruption, poor management, and illegal logging, Traffic, a Cambridge, U.K.-based conservation group, said in a May 2007 report. China imported 10 times more timber than Tanzania's export records document over the 2004-2005 period, suggesting a 90 percent loss of revenue, the report said.

... Roughly 20 percent of merchandise circulating in Tanzania is counterfeit or pirated, with many of these goods such as clothes, mobile phones and spare car parts manufactured in China, according to an April 2008 study by the Confederation of Tanzania Industries."

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