Small and Medium Enterprises in Tanzania are set for a major boost following an adoption of Kaizen, a Japanese cluster based development strategy for SMEs.
Deputy Minister for Finance, Ms Janeth Mbene
The Deputy Minister for Industry and Trade, Ms Janet Mbene said in Dar es Salaam the new Japanese strategy would help manufacturing enterprises to improve productivity and quality of their products at the same time minimising production cost.
Speaking at a joint seminar on promotion of industries in Tanzania, the Deputy Minister said Tanzania would build on successes of a pilot project of Kaizen in textile sector launched last year to promote SMEs in the country.
“The outcome of the exercise was very impressive that we could not resist to pursue it further,” she said.
She said Tanzania with the assistance of the World Bank and the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS) implemented Kaizen in SMEs textile sector on pilot basis.
The government established a Tanzanian Kaizen Unit (TKU) in 2012 to disseminate Kaizen practices countrywide, with the assistance of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
There are 15 trained Tanzanian trainers and 23 local enterprises are implementing KAIZEN practices in Dar es Salaam and later on extended to Morogoro and Dodoma regions, she said.
The Kaizen strategy which in Japanese means continuous improvement, is implemented worldwide mainly in manufacturing sector for productivity improvement, quality enhancement and safety of working environment, she said.
The ministry is also emphasising on developing industrial clusters, as it is the solution when considering the size of Tanzania on facing expenses of issues on infrastructure and utilities which are vital, she added.
Statistics given by Dr Donald Mmari from Research for Poverty Alleviation (REPOA) indicate that only 22 per cent of SMEs in Tanzania are formal and the rest are informal.
The statistics further reveals that 45 per cent of the formal SMEs are micro, 54 per cent are small and 1.6 per cent large.
“Something has to change so as to bring development to this sector starting by the help of KAIZEN,” said Dr Mmari.
Prof Keijiro Otsuka of GRIPS said that garment clustering in Dar es Salaam was promising and that it is estimated that there are 700 garment workshops. He urged the government to support this sector.
By MARY RAMADHANI, Tanzania Daily News
