Tanzania

Tanzania has a land mass of 947,300 km² with a coastline of 1,424km, and is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Kenya and Uganda to the north, Burundi and Rwanda to the northwest, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to the west, Malawi and Zambia to the southwest and Mozambique to the south.

It has a population of 70.1 million and a GDP of US$78.8bn which is expected to grow by 6% in 2025.

The Tanzanian Shilling is the official currency.

Tanzania is among the most politically stable countries in Africa and has Swahili and English as official languages. It has a fertile coastal belt, a plateau in the central and southern regions, and the Masai Steppe and mountain ranges in the north.

The major food crops are maize, cassava (a root vegetable), rice, potatoes, beans, sweet potatoes, sorghum and bananas, while the main cash crops are coffee, cotton, sugarcane, tea, cashew nuts, tobacco, sesame seed, flowers and sunflower seed.

For many crops, commercial farms consist of a main farm operated by an investor or owner, and surrounding smallholder farmers known as out growers. Most farmers are engaged in small-scale farming on plots ranging between 0.9ha and 3ha. The fact that farmers do not own their land makes it difficult for them to use their farms as collateral for financing.

Tanzania’s agribusiness sector shows great potential as the country has an abundance of land and water resources, and a favourable climate for the production of a variety of crops.
A key policy document is the Tanzania Development Vision 2025 which aims for the agricultural sector to be modernised, commercial, highly productive and profitable by 2025.

Tanzania’s petroleum industry has been growing recently in terms of natural gas output and the consumption of natural gas and petroleum products. Tanzania has recoverable natural gas reserves of 1,629 billion cubic metres, the fifth largest in Africa, while it produces enough natural gas to satisfy domestic demand. The country’s 23 petroleum product receiving terminals at its ports have a combined storage capacity of 1.4 million kilolitres, enough to satisfy the country’s consumption for 122 days. Tanzania is an important channel for neighbouring landlocked countries’ petroleum imports, and it exported petroleum to the value of US$52.3m in 2021.

In terms of natural gas, Equinor Tanzania is the operator of the block in which the largest gas reserves have been discovered, French-owned Maurel and Prom Exploration Production Tanzania is the operator of the natural gas field with the largest production in 2022, and TPDC produces the most processed natural gas, has the longest transmission pipelines and the longest distribution network. Puma Energy Tanzania, owned by Puma Energy Holdings of Singapore and the Tanzanian government, is the largest seller of petroleum products (excluding LPG), while Swiss-owned Oryx Gas Tanzania is the largest supplier of LPG.

TotalEnergies Marketing Tanzania is the largest lubricants supplier, while local company Lake Oil owns the most petrol stations, followed by TotalEnergies, Puma Energy Tanzania, Oryx Energies Tanzania and local company Oilcom.

According to the World Bank, agriculture contributed 25.9% to GDP in 2021, industry (including construction, manufacturing and mining) 29.3%, and services 34.3%.
The US$10bn Bagamoyo port development project in Tanzania is scheduled to be relaunched in 2025. Its capacity will be 20 million TEUs by 2045, making it the largest port in East Africa.


Sources: Who Owns Whom sector reports, CIA Factbook, African Development Bank, World Bank, Trading Economics, African Statistical Yearbook and IMF. ?>