Country Background

Tanzania, created by the union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar, is located in East Africa and boarders amongst others, Mozambique, Malawi and Zambia. The union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar was formalised in 1977 and in 1992, a multi-party system was introduced. From 1995, following the election of Benjamin Mkapa, the country has been politically stable and is now regarded as one of the most politically stable countries in Africa.

The economy reflects the ongoing political stability of the country and has progressed steadily since 1995 with agriculture, tourism and mining all performing well. Mining is the fastest growing sector in Tanzania in terms of contribution to GDP and exports. This growth was assisted by the World Bank and the introduction of investor friendly mining laws which was introduced in 1998. The Mining Act of 1998 and subsequently amended in 2010 guarantees investor’s security of tenure, provides transparency in issuance and administration of mineral rights.

This has lead to a number of Australian and international corporations being attracted to the region including African Barrick, AngloGold Ashanti Limited and Resolute Mining Limited all of whom have a significant presence in the country.

Alongside precious stones, gold mining has dominated the Tanzanian mining industry for more than a century. There are records of organized prospecting and mining dating back to the German colonial period, with gold discoveries being made in the Lake Victoria Goldfield in 1895. Tanzania is now Africa’s third largest gold producing country after South Africa and Ghana. Nonetheless, the country is considered under explored in comparison to other gold producers of its size and there is believed to be a high probability of future discoveries with large contained gold deposits.

The first of the large mining projects in Tanzania began producing gold approximately ten years ago. One of the key drivers behind the expansion of the Tanzanian gold mining sector is the prospective Greenstone Belts and in particularly the Lake Victoria Goldfield.

The Archean greenstones in Tanzania also have potential for the discovery of nickel sulphide, volcanic massive sulphide, porphyry copper, zinc, lead and copper, VMS style and platinum group metals. Historically, little exploration has been carried out for these commodities and it is only in the past decade that the potential has been recognised and exploration work for these commodities carried out with some early indication of success.

More recently, on the back of broad scope exploration discoveries for a range of minerals have been made including uranium, coal, nickel and more recently rare earth elements.