Enterprising skills make Indian-origin Tanzanians business leaders

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania

Born in Tanzania, Indian-origin Mohammed Dewji is among the youngest billionaires of Africa, according to Forbes Magazine.

The US-trained entrepreneur transformed his family business from a $26 million trading and distribution company to a $1 billion business empire in just 12 years.

“I went to Georgetown University in Washington. I studied finance. When I graduated, I came back and joined my father’s business. We are one of the largest trading houses in eastern and central Africa,” he told Anadolu Agency.

Dewji, who was born in a drought-hit Singida region in central Tanzania, is hoping to make his company worth $5 billion in the next five years, and provide employment to 100,000 people across Africa.

Like Dewji, many Indians mostly from Gujarat and Punjab provinces, who made Tanzania their home, have built successful business companies in Africa through their entrepreneurial skills.

According to the Hindu Council of Tanzania, Indian-origin ethnic groups from different faiths such as Hinduism, Sikhism, and Islam, locally known as Wahindis, make up just 0.2% of the population of the East African country. But they are believed to control a large share of all businesses.

Hemanshu Surti, 30, an Indian-origin Tanzanian citizen and owner of a beach resort which his family purchased 16 years ago in Dar es Salaam, has kept Indian culture intact.

Surti is the youngest of five brothers – three of them also own and operate hotels in Mwanza and Arusha in the northern part of the country. His family had migrated from India’s western state of Gujarat.

“It is a tough job, you need a good marketing strategy to attract customers,” he said.

Although born in Tanzania, Surti can speak and wrote fluent Gujarati. “My wife and I make some efforts to ensure that our children are exposed to Indian and Gujarati culture,” he said.

Kartikeya Nivara, a businessman based in Dar es Salaam, said Gujaratis succeed in business because they are known for taking risks.

“Business is in our blood. We learn it from a younger age,” he told Anadolu Agency.

According to Simeon Mesaki, a retired professor of anthropology at the University of Dar es Salaam, Indian traders flocked to Tanzania when the economy was liberalized in the 1990s.

“Minority Indians have maintained strong intracommunal trade relations ostensibly to provide easy solutions and maintain strong community cohesion, which is necessary for the survival of its members,” he said.