EARLIER this week, several people forwarded me a link to a recent article published by The Economist, which makes a bold claim that
Among other things, the nameless author (a feature of The Economist is that it has no by-lines) claims that cement sales by the top two firms are "flat," and bank lending to companies slumped.
To quote the article directly: "If Tanzania's economy grew by almost 7 per cent in the fiscal year to the end of
In 2019 sales at the biggest brewer fell by 5 per cent. Sales of cement by the two biggest producers were almost flat.
None of these things is likely if growth. The economist
The discrepancies are so large that it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the government is lying.
Some of these statements by The Economist, based on the evidence I have gathered from primary sources - namely, the statutory financial reports that listed companies in
The two biggest banks in
Here's
And here's
This growth was primarily motivated by our sustained efforts to uplift the
But on the primary source data I look at,
This has continued in the first six months of 2020 as well. NMB's total loans and advances grew by 3.1 per cent from
Annualize those rates and it looks like double-digit loan growth is on the cards again in 2020.
For CRDB, loan growth was even stronger at 3.1 per cent in the first quarter of 2020 and 3.8 per cent in the second quarter.
Again, that would translate to a robust double-digit annual rate of more than 12 per cent.
And it's leading to big profits for shareholders...
A year ago, it was a respectable 113/-. For CRDB, the comparative numbers are 27/- in the first half of 2020, versus 23/- in the first six months of 2019 (17.4 per cent growth). As for cement sales being "almost flat," again, this is total nonsense.
My biggest shareholding in
In 2019 Twiga sold 6 per cent more cement by volume than it did in 2018. In the first six months of 2020, Twiga already sold 8 per cent more cement than it had done by the same stage in 2019.
Again, these numbers are very consistent with an economy that's reported to be growing at around 7 per cent per annum.
Twiga's cement is being used in many large-scale, highprofile infrastructure projects that seem to me to be pretty hard to "fake."
My business partner
And yet, supposedly reputable mainstream media outlets such as The Economist persist in writing hatchet-job articles such as that quoted from above.
If they don't like the President John Magafuli administration, they should just say so, in my opinion.
Accusing the government of falsifying its economic statistics, based on factually incorrect claims that are not corroborated by plainly obvious and readily available evidence to the contrary, in my view, is extremely unprofessional.
It smacks of clutching at straws. The Economist also makes mention of the 5 per cent falls in beer sales in 2019.
Again, even a cursory glance at the published 2019 annual report by
Bans on the cheap plastic packaging used for the lowerend, "cloudy" traditional brews (made from sorghum and millet) made this business segment unprofitable.
TBL therefore exited from this segment, and re-structured its "Darbrew" operation. This resulted in sales falling. But TBL's profits actually rose in 2019.
I can only conclude they must have some sort of "hidden agenda." Deliberately obfuscating the facts, where it suits the narrative that they want to push is not good journalism.
Not to worry, I'll call them out as long as they do it. But this sort of muddying of the waters actually works in our favour as investors.
Where others are misinformed, there is opportunity. I've written before about how I believe this mismatch between the narrative in the media, and among a certain segment of the population in
To make big money in financial markets you generally need a non-consensus view; that view needs to be correct; and, then eventually, you need the market to come around to your way of thinking.
I am convinced we have such as set up in
Anyone I meet or talk to is either downright bearish or at the very least circumspect.
Investors who were riding high in the 2012-2016 periods have largely sold up and fled.
● The author of the article is Tim Staermose, the founder of globalvaluehunter.com
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