DAR ES SALAAM: Tanzania’s Zanzibar President Hussein Mwinyi has invited businessmen from East Africa and beyond to put up heavy investment on the islands that will help drive the blue economy.

Mwinyi said Zanzibar is open for heavy investment in diverse sectors of the blue economy, including deep-sea fishing, ports infrastructure, marine transport, petroleum and gas, and tourism, said a statement issued on Saturday by the East African Community (EAC).

President Mwinyi made the appeal during a CEO Evening Roundtable Engagement dinner on EAC regional integration organized by the East African Business Council on Friday night.

In his address read on his behalf by Zanzibar’s Second Vice President Hemed Suleiman Abdalla, President Mwinyi said: “Zanzibar also requires heavy investment in modern agriculture, real estate and conference tourism.”

“Investment in these sectors will spur business within the East African Community in addition to increasing national revenue and improving the lives of the people of Zanzibar,” said Mwinyi.

He said that Zanzibar had been a center of maritime and international commerce for centuries with merchants from the islands proving their worth in regional and global markets.

Peter Mathuki, the EAC secretary general, said Tanzania and Kenya, two members of the EAC, have huge potential for investment in the blue economy with shorelines on the Indian Ocean. Other member states of the EAC are Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan.