To quantify and profile the demand for financial services by SMEs, and to identify barriers to access in order to:
(i) provide a sound basis for making policy recommendations
(ii) to provide benchmark information for FSDT interventions.

The MSME Survey 2010 is the first nationally representative survey for micro, small and medium enterprises in Tanzania. It was conducted in September 2010.

• Ministry of Industry and Trade (MIT)
• National Bureau of Statistics (NBS)
• Steadman Associates – currently Synovate (research house)
• FinMark Trust South Africa (Technical Assistance)

Key findings

• There are 3.1M businesses in Tanzania owned by 2.7M people. 54% of these businesses are in rural area and women own 54%. Major sectors-Trade (55%), Services (30%) and Manufacturing (14%).
• Only 43% keep records (mostly basic and patchy). Only 4% formally registered (BRELA) and 5% have Tax Identification Numbers (TIN).
• 68% are single employee (including the owner) businesses
• Education of owners: 74% completed primary and only 7% have secondary or higher education.
• On skills to run the business, 72% had no training and only 21% and 7% had business and technical training respectively
• Access to finance: Only 20% have formal access to finance and 69% excluded
• 91% of owners did not take a loan to start their businesses
• 65% of the businesses save in a secret hiding place
• Only 19% have a formal rental agreement
• Only 0.4% have insurance
• On reasons to run business, 72% said they did it for survival reasons whereas 20% run business part time
• Barriers to access finance are; financial illiteracy, lack of collateral, lack of record keeping, informality, banks take longer time to process the loan, strict regulations and lack of proper products for small businesses