Indian state-owned bank Canara Bank Limited (NSE:CANBK), has recently started to seek for qualified professionals in Tanzania, indicating that the commercial bank, will soon open its first branch in Dar es Salaam to tap opportunities in the agriculture and trade sectors.
The bank, incorporated as Canara Bank Tanzania, announced at the beginning of 2015 to have received a provisional approval by the Bank of Tanzania (BOT).
According to Canara Bank’s Chairman and Managing Director, Mr. Rajiv Dubey, the bank counts with the necessary regulatory approvals to start its operations in Tanzania and currently company’s officials are in Dar es Salaam to examine locations and outsourced hiring companies.
Due to Canara Bank’s experience lending to agriculture sector in India, the bank expects to play an important role boosting agribusiness not only in Tanzania, but also from other countries in the region via its branch in Dar es Salaam, one of the main point of entries to Africa.
Tanzania becomes the third country in Africa where the bank has presence following Nigeria and South Africa, a strategy that is in plan with Canara’s plans of tapping the growing trade between India, Tanzania and other countries in the African continent.
According to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), India is the second main destination of Tanzania’s exports after South Africa; in 2013 it represented 14% of the total exported totaling USD 777 million up from USD 477 million representing 8.5% of the total exported in 2012.
After precious metals, vegetables products and food stuffs constitute the second most important group of commodities exported to India totaling USD 250 million and representing 32.1% of the total exported in 2013.
