WASHINGTON, April 28—The International Finance Corporation has invested in Tanzania’s first private insurance company since legislation privatizing the insurance industry. IFC made an equity investment of TSh 187.5 million (US$285,000) in Jubilee Insurance Company of Tanzania, Ltd. (JICT).
Jubilee Tanzania will provide general, non-life insurance (except aviation), and also plans to offer life insurance after one or two years.
The Tanzanian insurance industry had been nationalized in 1967. In November 1996, the Tanzanian Parliament passed the Insurance Act opening business to private companies, and the legislation received presidential assent in February 1997.
The Jubilee Insurance Company was incorporated 60 years ago, with headquarters in Mombasa, Kenya. Jubilee Insurance Company of Kenya will be the technical partner in this project. Jubilee Tanzania is capitalized at US$2 million. The shareholding structure will be: Jubilee Insurance Kenya, 40%; AKFED, 15%; IFC, 15%; Jubilee Uganda, 3%; Jubilee Mauritius, 3%; and local Tanzanian investors 24%.
Michael Hooper, IFC’s resident representative in Nairobi who signed on behalf of IFC, predicted a bright future for Jubilee Insurance. He said Jubilee would be instrumental in deepening and broadening the financial sector, noting that it was the first private sector insurance company in Tanzania since the liberalization of the economy in the mid-1980s.
When Tanzania liberalized its economy, annual GDP growth rose from an average of 2 percent in the previous decade to over 4 percent during the 1986-95 period and nearly 5 percent by 1996. The decline in per capita income during the late 1970s and early 1980s has been reversed.
IFC, part of the World Bank Group, fosters economic growth in the developing world by financing private sector investments, mobilizing capital in the international financial markets and providing technical assistance and advice to governments and businesses.
