Mining, particularly for gold, forms part of the heritage of Tanzania, but the industry has recently tried to reinvigorate itself. In 1992, Tanzania launched a mineral sector development program to oversee privatization and liberalization of the state-controlled sector. The mining department was restructured to accommodate these changes and the Mineral Policy Act of 1997 and later the Mining Act of 1998 reflected the direction charted by the reform process.

Today, Tanzania remains gold focused and ranks as Africa’s fourth largest producer after South Africa, Ghana and Mali. Production jumped to 40.4 mt/y in 2011 from 35.6 metric tons per year in 2010. According to the Central Bank of Tanzania, earnings from gold exports in 2011 rose 47% to $2.226 billion with gold representing the lion’s share of revenue from mining contributing for 59.1% of Tanzania’s total non-traditional exports. Aside from simple production capacity, several challenges emerged, such as the low contribution of the mining sector to the country’s overall GDP and the inadequacy of the infrastructure to support its growth. Other challenges include the increasingly negative public perception of mining in respect to its low social and economic contributions. The new mineral policy of 2009 and the amended mining act of 2010 address these issues, but progress in the aforementioned areas remains tenuous.