DAR ES SALAAM: THE future of the extractive industry is promising as the government prioritises value addition of all minerals to strengthen competitiveness in the global market and make the sector more profitable by boosting revenue and diversifying the country’s economy.
The target is to ensure Tanzania exports only value added minerals while attracting manufacturing industries to produce end user products, including batteries for electric-vehicles.
Opening the Tanzania Mining and Investment Conference 2024 yesterday in Dar es Salaam, Prime Minister Mr Kassim Majaliwa said the government is committed to increasing production of value added minerals by creating a conducive environment for all investors in the extractive sector.
“In order to realise our country’s extractive sector’s full potential, we must ensure maximum value addition of the resource by producing end user products such as batteries for e-vehicles,” he said.
He added: “We must also ensure the extractive industry is integrated with other economic sectors including agriculture and manufacturing.”
He said the government has been upgrading economic infrastructure, including electricity supply, roads, railways, ports and airports as well as purchasing aircrafts in efforts of upgrading the entire production chain of the extractive sector while cutting production cost of both small and large-scale investors.
He said the target is to ensure the extractive sector contributes over 10 per cent to the GDP by 2025 from the current nine per cent.Mr Majaliwa said the mining sector’s contribution to the GDP increased from 7.3 per cent in 2021 to 9 per cent in 2023.
In that regard, he said the conference intends to attract the latest mining technologies from foreign investors and enable stakeholders to exchange knowledge that will see the country realising the sector’s fullest potential for development of the country’s economy.
The conference which is themed “Mineral Value Addition for Socio-Economic Development” has brought together over 1500 mining stakeholders from within the country, Africa and beyond, encompassing representatives from major mineral conglomerates such as Barrick Gold Corporation and Anglo-Gold Ashanti.
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In another development, Mr Majaliwa urged miners and traders to adhere to the country’s legal requirement of selling their gold to the Bank of Tanzania (BOT) so as to enable the government to attain its overarching goal of having enough gold reserves.
Also, he said the government will continue empowering small-scale miners by giving them areas for extraction, assisting them in mineral exploration, capacity building as well as supplying their mines with electricity so as to elevate their contribution to the country’s economy.
He said by September 2024, about 350 small scale miners’ mining sites were connected to the National Grid.
To increase small scale miners’ efficiency, he said the government in collaboration with the Federation of Miners’ Association of Tanzania (FEMATA) has been carrying out training tours to small scale miners, noting that in 2023 alone, 95 miners went to China to explore new mining technologies and markets.
For his part, Minister for Minerals, Mr Antony Mavunde said the mining sector contribution to the government coffers in 135 days of the ongoing Financial Year 2024/2025 reached 392bn/- compared to 161bn/- collected in the entire 2015/2016.
