African Development Bank gives $93.5 mln loan to support Tanzania's agriculture

The African Development Bank (AfDB) has approved a $93.51 million loan for Tanzania aimed at supporting the agriculture sector.

An AfDB statement said the board of Africa Development Fund, a unit of the bank, approved the loan to be advanced to Tanzania's state-run Tanzania Agricultural Development Bank (TADB).
"The funding will contribute to supporting Tanzania’s agriculture sector and achieving the country’s development goals," the statement said.
Agriculture employs more than two-thirds of Tanzania's population of about 50 million people, according to official estimates. The bank said the sector had big potential given the country's "abundance of arable land and the availability of inland water resources".
Despite its potential, though, the sector has been one of the slowest growing, which officials have attributed to limited access to cheap and long-term funding.
"A major problem facing the country’s agriculture sector is the unavailability of medium to long-term finance to support, among other things, agricultural production, processing and marketing," AfDB said in the statement.
According to the bank, Tanzania's agricultural sector has grown at an average of 4.4 per cent per annum over the last 10 years and contributed an average of 29.3 percent of GDP.

(C) Reuters News