12:01
Dar
es Salaam, Tanzania: Last week President Magufuli hosted the President’s
Manufacturer of the Year Awards (PMAYA) – an annual event designed to honor the
most outstanding manufacturers in the country. At the event, the president
assured guests that his government is rallying behind the manufacturing sector
to ensure that the sector contributes over 15 percent of Tanzania’s GDP and
accounts for 40 percent of all new jobs by 2020.
Tanzania’s
richest man, Mohammed Dewji, who carted away several prizes at the
ceremony, and received accolades from the President for being the country’s
largest private employer of labor, promised the President that he’ll create
thousands of new jobs for Tanzanians within the next few years.
“I am going to invest more than $500 million
over the next 4 years to employ over 100,000 people across Africa by 2021 with
a significant majority of those jobs coming to Tanzanians,” Dewji said in a
conversation with this writer.
Dewji, 41, continues to be one of the key
players in private sector-led development in the country, well known for being
a leader in local employment and manufacturing in East and Central Africa. His
conglomerate, the METL Group, now operates in over 35 industries as diverse
as trading, agriculture, manufacturing, energy and petroleum, financial
services, mobile telephony, infrastructure and real estate, transport,
logistics and distribution.
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