By Our Staff Correspondent, MWANZA Tanzania
The World Bank said Wednesday it will lend 50 billion U.S. dollars (about 115.18 Trillion Tanzania Shillings) to 48 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa this year as it names countries that have boosted their economies.
The Bank said the loan
is significantly more than any other region and making up about one-third of
the Bank’s entire portfolio.
“These financing
volumes are almost double what the region delivered ten years ago,” the lender
said in a statement.
The Bank’s portfolio
includes projects and programs in areas such as agriculture, trade and
transport, energy, education, health, water and sanitation.
The Bank said its
Sub-Saharan Africa regional portfolio will now be managed by two vice
presidents, covering Western and Central as well as Eastern and Southern
Africa, respectively.
The institution
announced the change in early 2020, which took effect on Wednesday.
The region has been led
since 2018 by Hafez Ghanem, who now takes on the role of vice president for
Eastern and Southern Africa while Ousmane Diagana will be in charge of Western
and Central Africa.
In the other
development, the World Bank has classified Tanzania and Zimbabwe among other 16
African countries as a lower middle income economy under its latest country
income classifications released on Wednesday.
The President of
Tanzania, John Magufuli, has expressed his delight upon receiving the news through
his twitter account.
“Today,
the World Bank has declared Tanzania Middle Income Country. In this regard, I
congratulate all my compatriots for this historic achievement. We had envisaged
achieving this status by 2025 but, with strong determination, this has been
possible in 2020. God Bless Tanzania.”
The
World Bank classifies the world's economies into four income groups, high,
upper-middle, lower-middle, and low and upgraded economies on Gross National
Income (GNI) per capita.
The
classification is updated each year on July 1.
Tanzania with a $1,105 per capita income for 2019 sailed into the middle income category.
Tanzania has sustained
relatively high economic growth over the last decade, averaging 6–7% a year,
with the poverty rate in the country also on the decline.
Joining
Tanzania in the 50-country worldwide lower middle income log are Algeria, Benin,
Nepal and Sri Lanka as new comers.
For
the current 2021 fiscal year, low-income economies are defined as those with a
GNI per capita, calculated using the World Bank Atlas method, of $1,035 or less in 2019 while lower middle-income economies are those with a
GNI per capita between $1,036 and $4,045.
Upper
middle-income economies are those with a GNI per capita between 4,046 US
dollars and $12,535 and high-income economies are those with a GNI
per capita of $12,536 or more.
The
GNI measures all income of a country's residents and businesses, regardless of
where it's produced whereas the GDP measures the income of anyone within a
country's boundaries irrespective of who produces it.
Estimates
of GNI are obtained from economists in World Bank country units; and the size
of the population is estimated by World Bank demographers from a variety of
sources, including the UN’s biennial World Population Prospects.
The country still faces unemployment uphill.
According to the Tanzania Bureau of Statistics the number of persons in employment as by 2018 were only 22.0 million.
The current population of the United Republic of Tanzania is 59,713,693 as of Wednesday, July 1, 2020, based on Worldometer elaboration of the latest United Nations data. - Africa
No comments:
Post a Comment