TANZANIA is currently importing over eight million litres of milk monthly to meet the fast growing demand of the product in the country.According to Tanzania Dairy Board (TDB) Marketing Officer, Michael Mkalati, official monthly production stands at 3.84 million litres, far less than the national demand.
Speaking at the 37th Dar es Salaam International Trade Fair (DITF), Mr Mkalati said, "The local demand for various milk products is very high compared with the limited supply, calling for more investments in the dairy subsector."
He called upon private investors to explore opportunities in the dairy sector to generate more revenues as well as contribute significantly to the economic development.
To control the cheap imports of dairy products, the government recently introduced one per cent levies with the views of protecting local producers.Mr Mkalati said currently there were about 750,000 dairy cows out of 23 million cattle in the country, thus creating the need for enhancing investments in the sub-sector. The situation shows that there were more indigenous cattle than the dairy cows. Similarly, the daily capacity of the dairy factories in the country was around 750,000 litres per day, indicating that they were function under capacity.He said the board was planning to promote dairy cows to around 3 million by 2025 to ensure that the growing demand is met.
There is a need to build capacity of the local industries to enable them produces desirable quality and volumes for export, otherwise the country will remain the market for imported dairy products, he warned.
Experts say it is high time countries in the East African region joined forces to raise their dairy products and attain standards suitable for exporting to international markets.
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