Strong Tanzania economy still blighted by poverty: World Bank

Tanzania’s economy is well placed to extend a run of strong growth, but the government should do more to ensure the extra wealth reaches its people, most of whom are mired in poverty, the World Bank said.Given careful budgeting, gross domestic product should rise 6.5-7.0 percent this year as well as in 2013 and 2014, supported by the country’s mining, telecommunications and banking sectors, the World Bank said on Thursday in a report.The benefits of a rapidly developing natural gas industry should also kick in over the next seven to 10 years.The growth rate matches a forecast from the International Monetary Fund, which said in March it expects east Africa’s second-biggest economy to expand by 6.5 to 7 percent in 2012-13. It grew 6.4 percent in 2011 and 7 percent in 2010.The World Bank said Tanzania would hit the target if it avoided major economic shocks and found the right balance between borrowing to finance infrastructure projects and ensuring it can manage its debts.Tanzania’s public deficit fell in 2011/12 for the first time in four years to 5.0 percent of GDP, Philippe Dongier, the bank’s director for Tanzania, Burundi and Uganda, said at the launch of the report.But mass poverty remained a major issue despite the improving economic picture.“Growth in Tanzania has been concentrated in a few capital-intensive sectors such as mining and telecoms, and soon natural gas - failing to produce widespread job creation, failing to raise incomes of the masses, and failing to reduce poverty,” he said.