Tanzania signs Samoa agreement
Tanzania signs Samoa agreement
Daily News| 26th December 2023
By Daily News
TANZANIA government has signed new partnership agreement with the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS) and the European Union (EU) with its member states.
The new partnership agreement will serve as the new legal framework for EU relations with 79 countries. This includes 48 African, 16 Caribbean and 15 Pacific countries.
The agreement was signed recently by Tanzanian Ambassador to Belgium, Jestas Nyamanga, at the OACPS secretariat’s headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.
The key areas of cooperation in this agreement include sustainable economic growth and development, trade and investment; environmental protection and coping with the effects of climate change.
According to Ambassador Nyamahanga, other areas of cooperation that are based on the agreement include responding to new threats to peace and security, immigration and mobility, democracy as well as human rights.
Coupled with that, the agreement supersedes the partnership agreement of Cotonou signed in 2000, which will come to an end on December 31, this year.
Cotonou agreement is the partnership between the members of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States on the one part and the European Union and its Member States of the other part that aims to promote and expedite the economic, cultural and social development of the ACP States, with a view to contributing to peace and security and to promoting a stable and democratic political environment.
From January next year, the new agreement named Samoa, will serve as the basis of policy and law to lead the cooperation and partnership with the EU for the next period.
The diplomat further noted that the existing historical cooperation between Tanzania and the EU, which officially started in 1975, has always based on the joint venture agreements signed between the OACPS and the EU member states.
Through the partnership agreements, the country has been benefiting significantly from its cooperation with the EU, in areas various, including trade, investment and tourism.
In a period between 1997 until 2022, Tanzania received more than 3.4 billion US dollars from the EU.
Sales of Tanzanian products in the EU market have continued to grow per annum, whereby as of 2021 the sales reached 891.5 million US dollars.
Since the country entered into agreement, Tanzania has received the aid of more than 2.3 billion Euro which is equivalent to 6.3bn/- purposely for execution of various development projects.
