Ambassador on BRI and what it brings to Tanzania

Mbelwa Kairuki, Tanzanian Ambassador to China, recently talked with China Daily website on Beijing’s policies on trade and investment, as well as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Kairuki thinks highly of China’s development in the past 70 years since the founding of new China and said many developing countries have benefited a lot from its progress, especially in agriculture, science and technology and medicine.

The ambassador was impressed by China’s recent efforts to facilitate foreign investment, and how China has opened up more to international investors, particularly in the past ten years. Many of the Tanzanian businessmen in China are based in Guangdong province, where they set up their trade companies, exporting the cheap consumer goods, furniture and electronic products to their homeland in Africa.

Ever since Tanzania’s participation into BRI, bilateral exchanges have been on the rise, with more Tanzanians studying in China and Chinese working and traveling in Tanzania.

There are also many infrastructure projects between the two countries under the BRI, like the construction of the road linking Tanzania’s capital Dar es Salaam with the northern city of Kagera. Previously people travelling between the two cities used to have to transit through a third country.

Near the end of the conversation, the ambassador said BRI is a platform that enables the participant countries to build a more sustainable, collaborative and inclusive world.