Global Alternatives 2024
№122 Tanzanian New Ground for Russian Businesses. Prospects for Cooperation in Agriculture
Valdai_Paper_#122
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Modern Tanzania is oriented towards pragmatism. This means keeping an equitable distance from all the ideological camps to maintain mutually beneficial cooperation. This idea is well conveyed in a Swahili saying, Biashara haigomvi, meaning “whoever wants to do business will not quarrel with anyone.” In the new millennium, Dodoma’s quest for funding opportunities has encouraged it to pursue a foreign policy that would be open to exploring a large spectrum of partnerships.

An advocate of flexible economic diplomacy, Tanzania’s President Samia Suluhu Hassan, fondly nicknamed Mama Samia in her country, has put an emphasis on expanding Tanzania’s niche in the global division of labour. From now on, the beloved tourist destination, famous for its beaches and Mount Kilimanjaro, is also supposed to attract foreign investment in a variety of other spheres. 

Indeed, Tanzania’s investment potential is not a mere promise. Despite its poverty level remaining high, Tanzania has surpassed many African countries in terms of economic growth over the past ten years. Its per capita GDP at purchasing power parity is $3,050 – quite an uptick from the $2,020 of ten years ago.

Tanzanian population growth averages 3.2 percent per year. According to the 2022 census, there are as many as 61.7 million Tanzanians, which makes it the fifth most populous nation in Africa and a large consumer market with a lot of available workforce.

The social fabric in Tanzania is largely underpinned by Swahili ethics. The Swahili civilization emerged and grew on the East African coast at the junction of the local Bantu, Arab, Indian and Persian communities. Swahili was used as the lingua franca for contacts with the colonizers across East Africa. Today, it transcends borders as a communication tool widely used in business, for a considerable part of Eastern Africa. Even the Ujamaastyle socialist experiments under the first Tanzanian president, Julius Nyerere, failed to break the local cultural codes of the local economy, which encourage entrepreneurship, accumulation of capital, investment, and expansion of geographical ties.