PM urges empowerment council to seek low-cost loans

PRIME Minister Kassim Majaliwa yesterday urged members of the National Council for Economic Empowerment (NEEC) to meet with financial institutions owners to explore the possibility of providing low-cost loans 
The Premier made the remark in Dar es Salaam yesterday when he met with members of the council.
He said it was important for members to meet with financial institutions to help citizens get soft loans to enable their economic growth.
“The council needs to meet up with financial institutions’ owners to talk on proper ways of facilitating soft loans,” he said.
The Premier said 80 per cent of Tanzanians were engaged in agriculture as an effective measure of improving the economy. He added that it could also help livestock breeders to find productive work, thus help the council to give them appropriate techniques to improve their farming.
Earlier the chairman of the council, Dr John Jingu, said the organisation was launched on January 8, this year, and approved to start working in priority areas that are productive to citizens, including agriculture, arts, livestock and fisheries. 
He said that they believe that the empowerment in these areas would bring immediate results for many citizens since most of them have focused their activities in such areas.
Dr Jingu said what was needed right now was to find methods that could solve the great challenges such as lack of capital and sustainable markets for their crops.
He said one of the methods they expected to use to bring about effective change was to strengthen the relationship in large and medium-scale producers.