Women, youth urged to utilise councils’ loans

THE Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Community Development, Gender, Women and Special Groups, Dr Zainab Chaula has urged women and youth to take advantage of loans offered by councils in the country to do businesses   to improve their economic status.

Dr Chaula made the remarks yesterday during her working visit to GS1 Tanzania Barcode Company that deals with provision of barcode services for Tanzanian products in Dar es Salaam.

She said women and young people have a reason to be excited about the loans along with the services provided by GS1 Tanzania to strengthen them economically.

“Women and young people should   use the loans provided by the councils where 40 percent goes to women,40 percent to young people and 20 percent to the  people with disabilities  with the aim of supporting them  economically and overcome poverty,” Dr Chaula said

Moreover, she told women to use the loans for the intended purposes and not otherwise.

Dr Chaula further congratulated the GS1 Company for being at the forefront of raising entrepreneurs in the country and insisted the company to continue providing education to Tanzanians on the importance of barcodes in business.

“I am really satisfied with the service provided by the company in providing barcodes which make traders be assured of the products they sell domestically and internationally. I would like to give my opinion to GSI to continue providing education to Tanzanians about the use of barcodes and its benefits,” Dr Chaula said.

GS1 Tanzania Chief Executive Officer, Ms Fatma Kange, said that the company will continue to work closely with all institutions to ensure that small entrepreneurs reach foreign markets along with being recognized by loan institutions.

“So far a total of 5000 companies have been given barcodes to use on the products and making the number of products that use the services of GS1 Tanzania barcodes in the market to reach more than 46,000 …our goal is to reach 10,000 companies by the year 2024,” Ms Fatma said

She said that the permanent secretary’s visit is one of the company’s efforts to ensure that it redefines itself in delivering services to Tanzanians and bringing about great results that contribute positively to the development of the country’s economy.

“We are grateful to the government through the Ministry of Investment, Industry and Trade that has continued to support us in solving different challenges to reach the goals we have set for ourselves, including supporting Tanzanian producers to find strategic foreign markets and get recognised to access loans,” she added