The trust's investments will include research and development of financial markets, products and services, training and other capacity building, strengthening smaller financial institutions to become credible and creditworthy counterparts for larger ones, developing regulatory and supervisory frameworks and a new technology development, the FSDT Technical Director, Ian Robinson, has said.
"FSDT is already working with micro-finance institutions and savings and credit co-operatives (SACCOs) and the future projects will probably include making financial markets work better for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs)," Robinson said.
The trust would support any organisation that contributed in realising the objectives of the government’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Plan (PRSP).
"The trust will support commercial banks and other financial institutions seeking to increase outreach by serving and developing new products for micro-finance markets and small scale customers," he said, revealing that one of the FSDT’s subsidiary aims was to help join up different components of the financial sector.
Robinson also said that FSDT would be working with organizations and individuals all over the country and particularly in rural areas where the poor great majority of people live.
In an exclusive interview with The Guardian, Robinson said that proposals would be assessed according to accepted business principles, including commercial sustainability of firms seeking support.
He said that projects would include the first assessment in Tanzania of the demand for financial services and barriers to access throughout the country.
The BoT Director of Micro-finance Directorate, Grace Rubambe, said that the Bank of Tanzania would help in the exercise of finding out which micro-finance institutions would benefit from the trust's monetary grants.
Earlier, the BoT Governor, said that FSDT would collaborate with the government to eradicate poverty in rural villages. He said that for ten years ago, poverty has decreased from 40 per cent in 1995 to 30percent, this year.
Despite the fact that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) had increased for this year from 6.7 to 7 per cent there is still a long way to go as the government needs it to rise up to 8 to 10 per cent.
The governor also said that the inflation has increased from 4 to 5 per cent because of the increase in oil prices.
He also said that Tanzania's balance of payment was strong at $2bn. But there was still a long way to go in order to achieve sustainable developments and the FSDT's role would be significant in achieving the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs).
Meanwhile, the Ambassador of Sweden to Tanzania, Torvad Akesson, said on behalf of FSDT donors which are Canada, United Kingdom (UK), Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden that over the last decade Tanzania had made significant progress in developing and implementing a national vision to tackle poverty.