Tanzania Investment Bank (TIB) officially announced over the weekend its plans to begin investing in large-scale infrastructure projects such as railways, highways, energy, and communications to assist the government hasten development in Tanzania.
TIB underwent restructuring earlier this year to function not only as a corporate bank, but also as a development institution that addresses Tanzania’s development issues head-on.
TIB’s 2011 Annual Report projected that, “With the support of the Government, the bank will methodically expand in pursuit of financing infrastructure, agricultural processing, tourism and SME’s among other sectors, catalytic to the realization of the National economic goal of achieving middle income status by the year 2025.”
Currently, the bank has the capacity to singularly finance local government infrastructure projects such as surveying, lang development, upgrades in agricultural markets, and small business development.
In this weekend’s announcement TIB Managing Director, Peter Noni, added that the bank has additional intentions to fight poverty in poor, rural areas from the grassroots level by enhancing financial capacities and sensitizing locals about the benefits of small loans.
He added that TIB has set aside TSH 379billion (about $235million USD) through its loan portfolio to specifically lend to individuals with little previous investment experience.
