Tanzania has almost all the critical minerals which the world is looking for.
It needs proper investment for effective exploitation, the Deputy Minister for Minerals, Dr Steven Kiruswa has said. He said the government under President Dr Samia Suluhu Hassan has been constructing enabling infrastructures including roads, ports, railways, airports and electricity to ensure all areas where mineral resources are situated are accessed.
“On the very first day upon arriving here, we were trying to show the world what minerals resources we have, the critical minerals that the world is looking for, we have nickel, we have graphite, we have all kinds of minerals resources which have been sought out by the rest of the world,” Dr Kiruswa said in an interview with CNBC Africa during the Indaba Mining 2024 at Cape Town in South Africa.
In that regard, he said, the Ministry of Minerals and its delegation at the Indaba Mining 2024 made visibility of all critical minerals available and networked prospective investors ready to ignite the full-scale exploitation.
Dr Kiruswa said the government further has made necessary mining policies and legal and regulation reforms to scale up investment through the Tanzania Investment Centre (TIC).
Furthermore, he pointed out that the local content criteria as the regulation reforms that demand investors to utilise indigenous resources like workforces in facilitating the creation of jobs and transfer of technology.
In another development, Dr Kiruswa revealed the country’s plan of shifting from trading raw minerals to value-added ones through intensifying investment in beneficiation and manufacturing industries in partnership with the private sector for the sake of return.
“Our long-term vision is to be the country that supplies end users’ products from the resources that are extracted. We want to engage in the recycling of minerals because the sustainable supply will depend on how we can extend the life span of mining through exploration and how we can recycle some of these products so that we can guarantee the world that there is continuous supply of the minerals ” he said.
However, he noted that the country faces limited capital and technologies appealing to investors to partner with the government in navigating the problems.
He said interested investors in the mining sector in the country will be given an exploration license to identify the volume of the critical minerals available while enjoying a permit to establish beneficiation and processing facilities to which the country will only reap 16 per cent from the share of investment.
