Dodoma (VNA) – President Truong Tan Sang hailed Tanzania’s strategic 🅰policies on economic development while touringও the Benjamin Special Economic Zone in Dar-es-Salaam city on March 10.

Tanzania has initially recorded major achievements in attracting foreign resources and producing goods in service of export to neighbouring countries, the State leader said. President Truong Tan Sang voiced his support for solutions applied by the Tanzanian Government, saying in the early days of development, Vietnam also met opportunities and difficulties similar to Tanzania’s. Therefore, he said, Vietnam stands ready to share its experience with Tanzania to help the country gear towards successes. Treasuring the good sentiments of Tanzanian ministries and agencies towards Vietnam’s military-run telecom group Viettel since its start-up days in Africa, the President expressed his belief that the first project launched by Viettel will help lure more Vietnamese investors to the special economic zone. Tanzanian Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment Charles Mwijag said during 2002-2006, the Tanzanian Government issued various policies to boost the development of industrial and processing zones, and create a legal framework to facilitate the operation of private enterprises. Domestic and foreign firms have poured over 1.3 billion USD into the processing zones, focusing on garments-textiles, mining and farm produce processing, generating jobs for 36,000 labourers. The Tanzanian Government is expected to roll out such models on a large scale and woo more foreign investors, including those from Vietnam, he said. The Benjamin Special Economic Zone houses many important industrial facilities to Tanzania, including plants manufacturing SIM cards for Viettel’s Halotel mobile network. As part of his State visit to Tanzania, President Truong Tan Sang on March 9 met with the country’s first Vice President and President of its Zanzibar semi - autonomous region Ali Mohammed Shein. Noting his admiration for Vietnam’s economic achievements, the host said Tanzania and the semi-autonomous region in particular are keen to learn from the Southeast Asian country’s experience in rice cultivation, aquaculture and seafood processing. Tanzania always welcomes foreign investors, including those from Vietnam, in these sectors. The President, in reply, said Vietnam is willing to cooperate with Zanzibar in areas of joint potential such as trade, investment, agriculture and telecommunications. He suggested the two sides mobilise financial resources for agricultural and seafood projects in Zanzibar, and work together to boost cooperation between Zanzibar’s localities and a number of Vietnamese coastal provinces in tourism, agriculture and fisheries.-VNA