Introduction The development of the Tanzania Trade Development Authority (TanTrade) strategic plan 2009/2012, heralds a new era

for the new Organisation that was established by the Parliament by Act No 4 of 2009. The Strategic Plan represents the views of the various stakeholders in the country. It is a culmination of an extensive consultation process which has taken some times to complete and is our first formal step on the road to Trade Development in Tanzania. The Vision, Mission and Core Values of TanTrade represent the consensus of stakeholders which we believe will help develop trade for the next three years. To cope with major changes in the economic spheres, TanTrade has developed a clear and coherent strategic direction to ensure that the development and promotion of trade both in local and international markets is achieved. The last 30 years (1978-2008), saw BET laying a strong foundation for TanTrades smooth takeoff. Much has been achieved during its reign; the Private Sector (SMEs) has been strengthened through capacity building programmes and is now responding to globalisation demands. This initiative was complimented by tailor made programmes, like, dissemination of right and timely trade information, coordinating their participation to international trade fairs, staging the DITF, and availing market research and product development reports for them to make informed decisions In 1984, for instance, BET launched a programme to encourage and motivate private companies to participate in the Dar es Salaam International Trade Fair. The number of participating companies has increased from 60 companies in 1984 to 2000 companies in 2008 and foreign countries participating in DITF has reached 28 in 2008 from an average of 5 countries in 1984. Tanzanias participation to international trade fairs has also increased from 5 countries in the 1984 to 15 in 2007.

TanTrade is a child of the new demands of the Business Community emerging from the evolving Multilateral Trading Systems (MTS). In the spirit of change and to respond to new business demands, the services of the new Organisation have been extensively reviewed in tandem with support structures required to operate successfully and achieve the Organisations new mandates. Moving services closer to the Business Community is top on the agenda and it expected by 2012 TanTrade will have offices in Arusha, Mwanza, Mbeya, and strengthen the office of Zanzibar. The Corporate Strategic Plan seeks to address most of the individual challenges faced by the Business Community which were collectively identified during the public hearing. In the Plan, the concept of Public Private Partnership (PPP) has been emphasised in the implementation of its core objectives, it brings with it new rights and responsibilities for all partners a relationships which cements a concept of equals within our mandate of trade development. In 1978 the Government formed the Board of External Trade as the agency responsible for promoting external trade, the duty of coordinating the internal trade was under the mandate of Board of Internal Trade (BIT) that was established in 1973 and the two organizations were complimenting each other. However, with economic reforms undertaken by the government in the 1980s and 1990s, coupled with substantial changes of trade landscape from the state controlled economy to the private sector driven economy the role of BIT gradually melted down and BIT become redundant. This left the internal trade without the necessary support it deserved even within the liberalized economic landscape. The effects of haphazardly operated internal trade became apparent in the export promotion efforts which depend on the solid base of the properly coordinated internal trade. As a result of this weakness, a need for transformation of the Board of External Trade and formally writing off the defunct Board of Internal Trade and form a more encompassing statutory body was explicitly expressed by various stakeholders. In 2004/05 the institutional Review of the Board of External Trade (BET) by independent consultant was commissioned and led to the recommendations of restructuring BET. Focusing on the BETs mandate, the

assessment justified the validity of formation of the Tanzania Trade Development Authority (TanTrade). TanTrade is enacted by Act of Parliament No 4 of 2009 as statutory organ, vested with regulatory, executive, advisory and consultative powers in relation to its function of developing trade in Tanzania. TanTrade has an extended mandate of developing both internal and external trade. Therefore, TanTrade has been strategically designed to promote a strong domestic trading culture and create its linkage to foreign trade by building its trading capacity in general.

MISSION To enhance Tanzanias economic performance through development and promotion of goods and services for both local and foreign markets.

VISION To become a world class focal point centrally positioned to support national economic excellence through trade development.

CORE VALUES

TanTrades service delivery is guided by the following core values:

1. Competitiveness - TanTrade encourages a trading culture, innovativeness, efficiency and productivity among Tanzanian enterprises and other business operators.

2. Corporate Social Responsibility - TanTrade understands that it is part of the

community and therefore values her active participation and contribution to community initiatives.

3. Professionalism - TanTrade observes professional ethics and standards in developing and delivering services to her clients.

4. Public-Private Partnership (PPP) - TanTrade endeavours to promote and sustain public-private collaboration in offering her services.

5. Teamwork Spirit - TanTrade cultivates teamwork spirit where every individual will share expertise and experience.

6. Transparency and Accountability - TanTrade upholds the principle of integrity, good governance and accountability; and does not encourage corruption and discrimination of any kind in her service delivery.

The Corporate Strategic Plan focuses on six key areas during 2009/2010 2011/2012 implementation plan

(i)

TanTrade will put a much thrust on building sustainable competitiveness of enterprises and other business operators through capacity building and appropriate trade promotion measures in order to improve the quality and quantity of goods and services produced.

(ii)

TanTrade will create dynamic interplay between domestic and foreign markets by designing and implementing trade development programmes aimed at promoting a systematic integration and consolidation of the domestic market and international market.

(iii)

To stimulate the performance of key sectors for trade development

(iv)

Promotion of the goods and services produced by enterprises in the local and international markets. To facilitate exchange and dissemination of trade information to a wide group of enterprises, zonal offices will be established.

(v)

TanTrade will continue to participate in the improvement of the trade policy framework.

(vi)

TanTrade seeks to increase her human resources base in order to sufficiently attend to the increasing need for its services as a results expanded mandate from BET to TanTrade. In order to strengthen the quality of its human resources capacity, TanTrade aims to improve its recruitment policies, retention scheme and staff welfare programmes.

Strengths of the strategic plan of Tantrade 2009-2012 Availability of trade opportunities in Tanzania. Still in Tanzania economy we have unexploited market, and Tanzanian population is still growing which provides an assurance to the domestic market. On the side of the international market, we have opportunity of providing raw products like unprocessed agricultural products and other foods products to the international market. Focus on capacity buildings; most of Tanzania small business owners lack of capacity of developing and owning small businesses as a result of many natives hanging without employment, or funds available in commercial banks without proper allocations. Tanzanian entrepreneurs lack capacity in the areas of capita, skills, technology, and governance. it is the core mission of the Tan trade to build capacity of local entrepreneur and hence make them able to produce goods and serves which will ultimately be improve their standard of living, eradicate poverty and boost Tanzanian economy. Supply of the market information to SMEs: majority of Tanzanian SMEs do not have enough capital to make market research. Tantrade do it on behalf of SMEs though in the plan there is no indication that trade information are provided for fee or free. Trade information are very important for entrepreneurs because they will use them to exhort trade opportunities and making venture with foreign companies. The information gathered has to be disseminated to those who need it. Tantrade will establish four zonal offices in Mbeya, Mwanza, Arusha and strengthen the operations of the Zanzibar office, as part of our strategy to enhance our outreach.

 Enabling capacity in upcountry: Tantrade strategic plan 2009-2012 is to build office in upcountry. The office construction in every region will be having full capacity as head office. This will draw service more closely to the stake holders such as small business owners. The plan is very significant in helping upcountry to access trade information though it has never being implemented. Corporate image well established in the plan. Tantrade has been successfully built its corporate images through exhibitions famously known as SABA SABA. At least people are aware of that , Tantrade has responsibility of organizing annual trade exhibitions there of society can assess the domestic products and foreign produces. Many local entrepreneurs and foreign businesses , larger corporations and multinational corporations participate in the exhibitions. Sensitize and encourage business formalization; Informal sector is one of the main contributors of employment and economic gains the country is boasting of. But this group is venerable to a number of constraints that restrict their competitiveness e.g., entrepreneurship skills, access to credit, technology, many others. This activity is developed to ensure that business undertakings in Tanzania operate formally and are recognized by Trade Support Institutions. Our Target in three years is to train 1,500 informal business operators and formalise at least 50% of trained informal business operators within the period. Develop and implement SMEs capacity building programmes; TanTrade will develop and implement Training programmes in order to build capacity of enterprises. These programmes shall include entrepreneurship skills, export readiness training, business financing and other tailor made training targeting various categories of entrepreneurs in their respective sectors in the country. Targeting at least 1,500 entrepreneurs within three years. Enhance quality management of Goods and services; TanTrade will develop Programmes in collaboration with other Trade Support Institutions aimed at improving quality of Goods and services to meet market requirements for both local and international markets.

 Enhance production capacities to cope with market demands. In order to stimulate local production capacities to meet market demand. TanTrade in collaboration with relevant stakeholders will initiate pilot projects under the concepts of One Village One Product and Export Production Villages for spices, horticultural Goods, honey, seaweeds and cashew nuts. Spices will include ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, garlic, black pepper, essential oils and paprika. Fruits will include mangoes, oranges, pineapples and baobabs. Vegetables will include onions. Linkage with Tanzania Diplomatic Missions Abroad and Foreign Trade Centre; TanTrade strategic objective is to collaborate closely with Tanzania Diplomatic Missions Abroad and Trade Centers on the dissemination of trade information. This will ensure easy access to the foreign market than any other. The strategic plan have captured well all the key aspects regarding the organization mandated responsibilities for example in market research, product development and the law which has formed the organization The organizational structure is vertical and is not flatter. This indicates that, Tantrade tragic plan is geared towards sophisticated structure than the as single superior manages few staffs. It also fits well with the stated mandated responsibities which has formulated the strategic plan. The strategic situation analysis has laid down the clear foundations under which the organization will accomplish its responsibilities. The SWOT analysis has captured well all details regarding strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats prevailing in the organization. The vision statement of the organization is simple, clear and memorable The mission statement clearly explains the central issues such as reason for its existence, the product, market and the technology to achieve the same The management philosophy of the organization has been formulated well in such away that they commensurate with the mission and vision of the organization. The strategy provides a good system of tracking feedback of implemented activities. It also recognize the significance of financial and operational report with its relative risks and assumption towards attainment of goals and objectives of their strategy. There is clear connectivity and direct relationship from one strategic objective to another which indeed enlighten critical issues to be implemented in the corporate objective

 With good capacity and clear focus on the key success factor of the organization, the intended strategic objective can achieve tremendous achievements

The limitation of Tan trade strategic plan 2009-2012 The mission statement is not sensitive to quality technological induction to trade development. Nowadays trades are competing in quality technology. In most service oriented organizations, customer excellence in the main brand of their products. Unlike Tantrade mission Statement which mainly focuses on the development and creation of the products for domestic as well as foreign market. The core values of Tan Trade do not sensitize issue of ethics and customer values. It only stress on the transparent, team work, accountability, partnership etc. This inspires the organization to work like it do not have customer and head without defined culture. Tan trade budget 49% depends on the government subsidies. This is very substantial amount which we afraid if Tantrade can make better off because there are many governmental organs that government have to take care of. There is no assurance of that Tan trade will secure hundred percent government subsidies as it is budgeted, and this will make the consequences on achieving the objectives of TanTrade if government grants are not provided or are note timely secured. The strategic plan support the dying government objectives of eradicating poverty called MKUKUTA and MKUZA. There is no symptoms of any success in those millennium objectives of eradication poverty by 2025, where we see poverty accelerated by high inflations, corruptions, high government dependent to donors and small pressure placed to ward the goal of eradication poverty. If the government by its self have no live commitment to poverty eradication, its merely agency alone like Tantrade

cannot make it. This is to say that Tantrade strategic plan have insignificant influence to the poverty elevations in Tanzania Limitation in remote outreach. Tantrade services are confined only in town areas and SMEs in village are constricted from access of service. Majority of Tanzanian population is from the villages. If the focus is poverty elevations, then Tantrade should keep villages firs. Plan of building zone offices has not been implemented and the plan is expiring 2012. The issue of building sustainable competitiveness of enterprises and other business operators are not necessarily to be only capacity building and appropriate trade promotion but also may involves diverse means such as networking with key stakeholders of different sectors of the economy. Thats to say that sustainable development is not the task of an individual institution like Tan Trade itself. It involves many stakeholders. These specific objectives doesnt take account political environment which might shift focus of the organization which ultimately may have an impact to desired goals.Foristance the rulling party through its manifesto may have different programs might interfere the intended objectives. To build sustainable competitive enterprises to the Tanzania environment might lack relative term Looking back, it is clearer to the public and actually these plans seemingly tight, logical connections between mission, belief, goals, actions, responsibilities, and evaluation but they are too overambitious which might likely affect the final results. representation of the reality. Therefore it might being the

 There are many factors which indeed may have effect to the implementation of this plan such as availability of resources i.e. budget, human resource management, physical facilities and other external issues which largely might have pertinent role in its accomplishment. Since the strategy is intended to cut across different sector of the economy, therefore some objectives might lack compatibility of the pursued goals. This strategic planning is coming to the time where the Organization is the transition stage from BET to TanTrade, where the main questions arise on the structure of the new organization with relative mandated responsibilities across different functions. Also things like organizational culture are likely to have an impact to the desired outcomes. Strategy aimed at developing and supporting domestic and foreign market penetration are not reality in the current competitive market environment structure in Tanzania. Currently we have seen variety of Chinese product coming and competing local Tanzanian products and the government is silent. Tanzanian have attitude of promoting foreign products than local products. Both Zanzibar offices and zonal branches do not have the foreign trade Centre. These centers are equally important in facilitating the international trade It is good that SWOT analysis has been conducted to analyses the l internal situation. However the organization is silent on how to address the identified weaknesses as well as how to utilize the opportunities. More over in the threats it is also silent on how to overcome them

 The plan does not cover well the key focus areas productivity, competitive positions, employee development, employee relations, technology and corporate social responsibility. Strategic objectives lack measurable objectives. Example the objective of ensuring dynamic interplay between the domestic and foreign market is too vague and lack target. This calls for difficulty in measuring the implementations and variance analysis of the deviations from the standards The source of finance to the SMEs is still questionable. The plan do nod clearly indicate how SMEs will source capital. The plan indicates that funding will be obtained through the development of the bankable proposal. The proposals in not good as granting loan , and beside there have been no any bankable proposal developed by Tantrade.

RECOMMENDATIONS Since the strategy has not clearly pinpointed some of key success factors (KFS) that will contributes to the sustainable competitive enterprises , therefore it is high time for the Organization to focus onto these factors with clear SWOT analysis which will bring competitive advantage of the Country at large. Tan trade has to provide facility for credit guarantee scheme to enable SMEs to gain access of credit esly. Most of capacity related problem in small businesses in Tanzania is collateral related matter. If Tan trade can not provide capital, it can build capacity by guaranteeing credits to the most viable small business in Tanzania. There must be measurable objectives. Objectives which creates possibility to quantify are of critical important to create the room for measuring and assessing variances. Example the strategic objectives has to be placed like the following example; a) To increase export by 50% of local enterprises and other business operators products b) To stimulate the performance of key sectors for trade development by ensuring that 10% MSE graduates to SMEs every year Tan Trade should narrow down to specific few sectors rather covering ten (10) sectors for such a short time of three years. This will enable to avoid overambitious of the organization towards attainment of these objectives.

 The strategy should show clearly the role played by different stakeholders and business supporting organization(BSO) in stimulating the performance of key sectors for trade development Zanzibar office and zonal office should have capacited to facilitate the international trade. The plan should cover all focus areas in order to be sustainable eg how social corporate responsibility will be achieved eg interm of participations in the social issues ets Tan trade should state how to capitalize on the identified opportunities and also addresses the weakness and threats which can hinder the achievement of the set goals Tantrade has to sensitize the issu of customer excellency and ethics in its core values. To days most of the organizations emphasize on the customer excellency and ethics in its core values.