Some time back, that douchebag David Ndii wrote that the Tanzanian economy will soon overtake Kenya’s as East Africa’s biggest. The allegation was repeated by a SN columnist called Cheeseman Something.
I have done some basic research and I can’t see the evidence.
According to the CIA Factbook, Kenya’s total GDP is $60.94billion, Tz’s is $48.09 billion.
The growth rates (GDP) for Tz were: 7%, 7.3% and 5.1% for 2014, 2013 and 2012 respectively. For Kenya they were 5.3%, 5.7% and 4.6%.
Basically what this means is that while Tz’s economy is growing marginally faster than Kenya’s (by about 1.5%) largely due to its larger extractive industry (gold, oil, gas, diamonds), it will take at least 20 years for the TZ economy to catch up, AND THAT’S ASSUMING KENYA DOES NOT BENEFIT FROM ITS NEWLY DISCOVERED OIL AND OTHER MINERAL DEPOSITS.
Kindly help clarify the issue.
(WARNING: THIS THREAD IS STRICTLY RESTRICTED TO PEOPLE WITH STUFF BETWEEN THEIR EARS.)
A reply to Ndii’s article was posted here some time back. KTALK CSI saidia.
The gist of the banter was that Tz will progress faster because of tightened nooses by President Makufuli. It was supposed to portray Kenya’s lacklustre approach to corruption as the main cause of economic decay. However, facts and figures say our money is healthy as it is. Even if we could do with some stricter structures.
The failure of this thread is fossil feeling threatened by Tanzanian economic growth either real or imagined. Even on the kindergarten playground there is the richest and the best. As Kenyans our bar should be a bit higher than comparing our neighbors. Upuss.
Forget about the statistics for a moment. One, the extractive industry in Tanzania is undergoing reforms. More investment is expected into the future. Two, land prices in Tanzania are still mild, this is an attraction to investors. Most importantly, Tanzania is already pumping natural gas. This means cheaper electricity and energy for industry. Any energy intensive industry with an eye on the larger East Africa will have Tanzania as the first choice. The energy aspect alone is enough to turn the tide and see Kenya become a net importer of goods from Tanzania.For instance, cement manufacturers are tripping over each other headed for TZ. Reason; cheap gas.
Can you now sambaza something for that lesson.
Hio ndio shida ya Ndii, he eases you into his arguments with very sweet words e.g their economy is growing faster than ours. Then he starts lying to you using figures he has pulled out of his ass. In that article he says the Kenyan GDP is at US $50 billion and is only 20% bigger than that of Tanzania placing Tanzania’s GDP at US $45 billion. That can’t be further from the truth, he uses our GDP before the re-base and then uses the GDP of Tanzania post re-base.
The best data source that I like using when it comes to GDP is the imf, and they update it biannually.
Below is how the database looks in the october 2015 update[ATTACH=full]29261[/ATTACH] http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2015/02/weodata/weorept.aspx?pr.x=65&pr.y=2&sy=2013&ey=2020&scsm=1&ssd=1&sort=country&ds=.&br=1&c=738,664&s=NGDP_RPCH,NGDPD,NGDPDPC&grp=0&a=
Ningetuma kama ungeweka figures pris. Lakini I deeply appreciate your viewpoint, though I do not necessarily agree with it. Kenya is also investing deeply in power generation and infrastructure like SGR. Mining is coming into its own.
Lakini nakubali hii maneno ya land prices might sink us - land is just too expensive.
I wish I had the time to fish you some good figures. We are investing in expensive power generation. As for the SGR, it needs other factors for it to prove useful. If there is no internal production, it may not yield benefits to its full potential. You see, we have a number of industrial parks planned along the railway. However, you do realize that investors will shun such initiatives if they deem them unfavorable.
What TZ has been lacking was a forward thinking and aggressive leader. Now that they have Magufuli, they can actually overtake us as we have failed to tackle corruption and our government is just getting into projects without thinking of the ROI
the problem here is that even those people who have stuff in between their ears will always let their political leanings take hostage their intellect…they always interpret statistics in favour of their camp
has tz done any rebasing? maybe that would change things.
i am however of the opinion that we’re not looking at the port as well.
tz is building theirs and they’re hoping the pipeline will not pass through lamu (citing security).
already there is talk of diverting some cargo there (thanks to pev)
so despite the low growth rates, the current environment and fdi’s pouring in can tilt tables in their favour.