Following complaints by farmers about multiple taxes imposed on coffee and other cash crops, the government of Tanzania will scrap about 17 taxes and levies imposed on coffee.
“They include coffee buying, processing and selling fee as well as the marketing fees,” Minister for Agriculture Charles Tizeba said.
Tanzania has been charging $1,000 for a licence to sell coffee abroad, $20 for a permit to purchase parchment dry cherry coffee and $250 for a coffee processing licence.
The country has put in place a 10-year development plan to raise the annual production of coffee. It is expected production will increase from 50,000 tonnes to 100,000 tonnes over the next four years.
Coffee accounts for about five per cent of Tanzania’s total exports and generates about $100 million per year, the Tanzania Coffee Board said.
Tanzania is the fourth largest coffee-producing country in Africa after Ethiopia, Ivory Coast and Uganda.
In Tanzania, the crop provides direct income to some 400,000 smallholders who produce 90 per cent of the country’s coffee.
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