THE Tanzania Women Chambers of Commerce (TWCC) has appealed for more support to enable it reaches its goal of creating a strong apex women organisation for promotion of female entrepreneurs in the country.
TWCC, one of the over 1600 local companies participating to the 37th Dar es Salaam International Trade Fair (DITF) hinted that it aims at linking women entrepreneurs countrywide to empower them but it is yet to achieve the goal.
Currently, it has registered only 2,000 women who works in various entrepreneurship groups, an indication that there is more to be done to have more members.
Talking to ‘Daily News’, TWCC Executive officer Ms Suzan Mtui said that the chamber has been able to link local women entrepreneurs to external world, helping them to improve capacity. “Through the chamber, we have helped women get more market for their products both local and international.
We also ensure that their products are certified by Tanzania Bureau of Standards (TBS) and have barcodes,” Ms Mtui said. The chamber according to Ms Mtui deals with women engaged in various handcraft activities, gemstone, food products, textiles and also offers services like cleaning and legal.
“We need to create a stronger commerce chamber that would help women have their business activities achieved.
Most of the women though striving hard to succeed economically fail due to inadequate business skills and approaches,” she explained, adding that TWCC was the exact chamber to impart such skills to Tanzanian women.
Some of the challenges that need immediate attentions to make TWCC reach its goal of empowering women include limited access to credit facilities from financial institutions, inadequate education amongst women and superfluous bureaucracies.
