EXPLORING TANZANIA’S INVESTMENT COMPETITIVENESS IN EAST AFRICA

Tanzania has liberalized its economy and leveraged political stability and strategic location to become a leading FDI destination in the East African Community. However, the country faces significant structural challenges, including a lack of skilled labor, cumbersome land tenure systems, and an outdated network of first-generation bilateral investment treaties that limit the government's policy space for industrial development. The paper recommends modernizing investment treaties, reforming land laws to empower smallholders, and strengthening the Tanzania Investment Centre to better integrate local SMEs into global value chains.

• Tanzania's investment attractiveness is driven by its political stability and strategic geography, specifically providing port access to six landlocked countries: Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Zambia, and Malawi.
• The country's bilateral investment treaty (BIT) framework consists largely of first-generation treaties that prioritize investor rights over the state's right to regulate, which the authors argue hinders the pursuit of an industrial policy-led investment regime.
• Significant structural impediments to foreign direct investment include corruption, poor infrastructure, skills shortages, and particularly the difficulty of accessing land and securing tenure, as the president remains the custodian of all land.
• Between 2009 and 2013, Tanzania's total FDI stock reached $14.9 billion, with the mining and quarrying sector holding the largest stock at $6,825.2 million in 2013, although the financial and insurance sector saw the highest inflows in that same year.
• Tanzania's domestic investment regime, managed by the Tanzania Investment Centre (TIC), offers fiscal incentives for foreign projects with minimum capital of $300,000 and domestic projects with minimum capital of $100,000.
• The authors identify a 'skills bottleneck' where low-quality education and a narrow skills base make it difficult for local citizens to benefit from technology transfer and for foreign investors to find skilled administrative capital.

APA

LANGALANGA, A., & MOUZINHO, Ê. (2017). EXPLORING TANZANIA’S INVESTMENT COMPETITIVENESS IN EAST AFRICA. South African Institute of International Affairs. https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Occasional-Paper-267.pdf

Chicago

LANGALANGA, AZWIMPHELELI, and ÊUREA MOUZINHO. EXPLORING TANZANIA’S INVESTMENT COMPETITIVENESS IN EAST AFRICA. South African Institute of International Affairs, 2017. https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Occasional-Paper-267.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=LANGALANGA |first1=AZWIMPHELELI |last2=MOUZINHO |first2=ÊUREA |title=EXPLORING TANZANIA’S INVESTMENT COMPETITIVENESS IN EAST AFRICA |publisher=South African Institute of International Affairs |date=July 2017 |url=https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Occasional-Paper-267.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{langalanga2017exploring, author = {LANGALANGA, AZWIMPHELELI and MOUZINHO, ÊUREA}, title = {{EXPLORING TANZANIA’S INVESTMENT COMPETITIVENESS IN EAST AFRICA}}, institution = {South African Institute of International Affairs}, year = {2017}, month = jul, url = {https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Occasional-Paper-267.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }