{THE Vice-President (VP), Ms Samia Suluhu Hassan, held conversation with Chinese President Xi Jinping here and agreed on seven projects that will be implemented in three years.}
The VP and President Xi also agreed Thursday on the formation of strategic working plan that will follow-up the implementation of those projects under the second phase of Forum on China Africa Cooperation (FOCAC).
An official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation said in total, the entire projects are estimated to cost over 10 billion US dollars. The official who preferred to remain anonymous since he is not the ministry’s spokesperson, named the projects as the construction of the central line to standard gauge, the Bagamoyo Special Economic Zone and revitalisation of Tazara.
“The railway and special zone projects are estimated to consume 80 per cent of the total costs,” the official said. Central line will cost about 7.0 billion US dollars while the special zone project will take 1.0 billion US dollars.
Other projects that fell under the 2nd stage of FOCAC are infrastructure construction, power transmission lines, water, road and gas distribution pipelines in Dar es Salaam, Coast and Mtwara regions.
They also include the extension of Sheikh Karume International Airport terminal buildings and Mpingaduni Port and deep sea fishing projects, all located in Zanzibar. “The money for implementation of the projects will be outsourced by either concessional loan, public or private partnership of Chinese aid,” the official said.
Also, Tanzania and China agreed on three new areas of assistance valued at the tune of 760million US dollars. The project involved is to build a new 400kVh transmission lines on the north-east area from Dar es Salaam through Coast, Tanga, Kilimanjaro to Arusha valued at 680 million US dollars.
“This project is in line with industrialisation initiative the country is driving at and power distribution on the national grid after the construction of gas pipelines,” the foreign affairs officer said.
Another area is e-education where a major centre will be constructed at Dakawa, Morogoro to facilitate recording programmes for secondary school subjects. The e-subjects will later be broadcast via internet to various schools and where there is no power, solar equipments will be installed.
“The good thing about this project is that students and teachers will interact during the e-class. A student can ask questions directly to the teacher and the teacher will respond back,” the diplomat said.
Also the two sides agreed on enabling Zanzibar government to work online via e-government platform. During the summit here which was attended by over 50 heads of state and government, President Xi pledged 60 billion US dollars over three years to fund projects in Africa.
The Tanzania delegation here is led by the VP who is accompanied by Ambassador Liberata Mulamula, the Permanent Secretary (PS) in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.
Others are Tanzanian ambassadors to China and South Africa. President Xi, who is co-chairing FOCAC, outlined a broad ten-point development plan driven by China, saying he wanted to build a relationship of mutual trust and equals.
The president said China would step up investment in factories manufacturing goods for export in Africa. He also announced cancelling of debts that have zero interest rates for least developed countries (LDCs) that matured at the end of 2015.
“China will implement ten cooperation plans with Africa in the next three years,” President Xi said.
These plans aim at addressing three issues holding back Africa’s development, namely inadequate infrastructure, lack of professional and skilled personnel and shortage of funds.
SOURCE:DAILY NEWS:[Dar, Beijing agree on seven priority projects->http://dailynews.co.tz/index.php/home-news/44831-dar-beijing-agree-on-seven-priority-projects]
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