ICT is key enabler for economic growth, says Tanzania ministry of CST

ICT is key enabler for economic growth, says Tanzania ministry of CST

Mr John Mngodo, permanent secretary at the ministry of communication, science and technology in Tanzania, opened Capacity Africa 2015 in Dar Es Salaam yesterday with a claim that ICT is the key enabler for economic growth in the country.

“Better late than never, now is the lifetime to ensure that all the citizens and residents of the country are granted a rightful platform to benefit from high quality communications services,” Mngodo said.

In a panel session following the address, Erik Van Der Dussen, head of TMT at Deloitte East Africa said that Africa had made vast progress over the last century.

“Understanding the future often comes from reflecting on the past,” he explained.

He noted the UK’s financial crisis in 2009 – which had a significant impact on the African economy – but said that this was also the year that M-PESA was launched, and with great success: “People didn’t want to carry too much cash in during that period,” he said.

“We also expect a lot of mergers and acquisitions,” Van Der Dussen added. “We think that in some African countries there are too many operators in business and too little operators making money, so we think there will be some convergence there.”

Africa is one of the fastest growing markets in the world, and Van Der Dussen expects that it will soon be the production continent for the world. He explained that China now outsources much of its labour and products to Africa, and he expects this to soon have an enormous impact on the African economy.

Quoting research from Cisco, Van Der Dussen added that Africa will be the fastest growing region in terms of mobile data traffic; expecting it to grow by 77% from 2013 to 2017.

Earlier this week, Smile Telecoms announced a $365 million investment in an African 4G network, and in June this year, Tigo spent $24 million in its network upgrade.

 

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