This report is prepared by TERI for research and strategic-information purposes only. It is not investment, legal, tax or financial advice and does not state the position of the Government of Tanzania. Recommendations are analytical proposals; estimates, targets and calculations may change and should be independently verified before use in decision-making. NBS's Quarterly Index of Industrial Production (IIP) measures physical output volume and is a different series from GDP-by-sector value added — the two should not be read as interchangeable. Reform references R1–R25 point to the Tanzania Policy Reform Agenda 2026–2031 register.
This page is the "price vs. production" companion to two earlier TICGL/TERI reports: Gold Dependence and Tanzania's Economic Future (can gold deliver the 2030/31 GDP target?) and Where Could Tanzania's Services Economy Be by 2030/31? (the diversification alternative). This report adds the volume-vs-value evidence underneath both: using NBS's Index of Industrial Production to show precisely why gold's recent export growth has been a price story, and what a disciplined revenue-allocation rule would need to look like to convert it into real production.
01 — OverviewExecutive Summary
Gold is a source of finance, not a growth engine. It generates foreign exchange, government revenue and liquidity — real and valuable things — but real GDP growth is measured by the volume of goods and services actually produced, not by the price at which a commodity sold. The data already show this divergence: gold export value rose 39% in 2025 and mining's share of GDP climbed from 7.2% (2021) to 11.9% (Jan–Sep 2025) — yet NBS's own Index of Industrial Production shows mining and quarrying physical output falling in three of the four most recent quarters reviewed (2025 Q1: −2.9%, Q2: −3.8%, 2026 Q1: −4.9% quarter-on-quarter), while manufacturing has stayed near 8% of GDP for three decades. Tanzania's mining boom of the past two years has been overwhelmingly a price story, not a volume story.
Does higher gold value mean proportional real growth?
Supported — no, it does not. Gold export value rose 39% in 2025 while real GDP grew roughly 6%, and mining's own physical-output index contracted in three of the last four quarters even as export value climbed.
Does gold help stability more than jobs?
Partially supported, with a measurement gap. Gold's contribution to reserves, revenue and FDI is well documented; its contribution to broad employment is not well measured, given the CAG-vs-Ministry local-content discrepancy (33% vs over 90%).
Does gold's development effect depend on how revenue is used?
Supported by the budget itself. Of TZS 62.33tn in the 2026/27 budget, only TZS 2.33tn (3.7%) is capital investment, against TZS 25.32tn in subsidies. No rule yet ring-fences mineral revenue for productive investment.
Gold revenue should be treated as development finance — channelled, through an explicit rule, into the sectors that actually build production capacity (manufacturing, agriculture, services, skills, infrastructure) — rather than treated as growth in itself. Every country in this report that converted resource rents into durable growth (Norway, Chile, Indonesia, South Africa) did so through an explicit fiscal rule and investment discipline; every one that did not (Botswana's continued diamond dependence, Ghana's gold concentration) remains structurally exposed to a single commodity price.
Headline numbers
| Indicator | Value | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| Gold export value, 2025 | US$4.754bn (+39% y/y) | Price × volume — a finance/FX indicator |
| Mineral exports share of total exports, 2025 | 52.6% (up from 45.2% in 2024) | Export composition — a concentration indicator |
| Mining share of GDP | 7.2% (2021) → 10.1% (2024) → 11.9% (Jan–Sep 2025) | Value added — blends price and volume effects |
| Mining & quarrying IIP, quarter-on-quarter change | −2.9% (2025 Q1), −3.8% (Q2), +2.5% (Q3), −4.9% (2026 Q1) | Physical production volume — the cleanest "real" indicator available |
| Manufacturing share of GDP | ≈8%, essentially unchanged for three decades | Value added — the productive-transformation benchmark |
| Real GDP growth, 2025–26 | 5.9–6.3% (BoT/Fitch/World Bank/IMF range) | Economy-wide production growth |
| Local mining procurement (local content) | 33% (CAG audit) vs over 90% (Ministry report, different period/method) | Domestic linkage — how much mining spending stays in Tanzania |
Read this alongside TICGL/TERI's gold-dependence report
That report asks whether gold can deliver Tanzania's 2030/31 GDP target. This one supplies the volume evidence underneath the question — the difference between a rising gold price and rising gold production.
Read: Gold Dependence & Tanzania's Economic Future →1. Three Numbers Tanzania Keeps Conflating
Gold export value ≠ nominal GDP ≠ real GDPPublic and even policy discussion often treats "gold exports are up", "nominal GDP is up" and "the economy is growing" as the same statement. They are not. Separating them is the entire analytical basis of this report.
| Concept | What it shows | What goes wrong if used alone |
|---|---|---|
| Gold export value | Price × volume of gold sold abroad, in current US dollars | Can rise sharply purely because the world gold price rose — with no change in how much Tanzania actually produced |
| Nominal GDP | Value of goods and services at current prices | Can rise from inflation or price effects, including the pass-through of a mining price boom, without production rising by the same amount |
| Real GDP | Volume of production after removing price changes — the correct measure of economic growth | Is what should be used to judge "growth", but is the number least reported in day-to-day commentary on the mining sector |
A simple illustration makes the distinction concrete. In 2025, gold export value rose 39% while Tanzania's real GDP grew by roughly 6%. If Tanzania had produced exactly the same volume of gold in 2025 as in 2024, and only the world price had changed, export value could still show a large increase — while the underlying productive capacity of the country changed only modestly. The gap between these two lines is, in large part, the price effect this report is about.
TERI illustrative index (2024 = 100). Gold export value +39% (Business Report); nominal/real GDP growth approx. 5.9–6.3% (BoT/Fitch/World Bank, 2025–26). Reproduced exactly as prepared in the source report.
02 — The EvidenceWhat the Data Actually Show: Value Up, Volume Uneven
The cleanest available evidence for this distinction is NBS's own quarterly Index of Industrial Production (IIP), which measures the physical volume of output by sector — independent of price. Comparing it with the rolling gold export-value series used in TERI's companion Gold Dependence Report produces a striking pattern.
2.1 Reading the divergence
- 2025 Q1: mining and quarrying output fell 2.9% quarter-on-quarter, even as gold export value continued its upward trend.
- 2025 Q2: mining output fell a further 3.8% quarter-on-quarter (−5% year-on-year), described by NBS as reflecting "reduced output in both metal ores and other quarrying activities" and "softer global commodity conditions" — while gold's rolling 12-month export value kept climbing.
- 2025 Q3: mining output recovered, up 2.5% quarter-on-quarter (NBS release) — a reminder that volume does move, just not in lockstep with value, and not always in the same direction from quarter to quarter.
- 2026 Q1: mining output fell again, by 4.9% quarter-on-quarter, contributing to an overall 3.6% decline in the national Index of Industrial Production — even as the rolling 12-month gold export value stood at US$5.20 billion, its highest level on record at that point.
Two data sources gave different figures for the 2025 Q3 quarter-on-quarter change in mining output (+2.5% per the NBS release text reviewed vs +7.9% per a TanzaniaInvest summary of the same release). This report uses the NBS figure as primary and flags the discrepancy in Appendix A for reconciliation against the original PDF release.
The pattern across four consecutive quarters is not one of steadily rising mining output. It is a pattern of volume moving in both directions, sometimes contracting outright, while export value has moved in one direction: up. This is the empirical core of the report's thesis: Tanzania's recent gold "boom" has been driven substantially more by the world price of gold than by an expansion of what Tanzania actually digs up and processes.
Sources: NBS Quarterly Index of Industrial Production releases (2025 Q1–2026 Q1); BoT rolling gold-export series via TanzaniaInvest/TERI companion report. Quarters matched by calendar period. Reproduced exactly as prepared in the source report.
2.2 The sectoral GDP picture tells the same story
Mining's share of GDP has climbed steadily — from 7.2% in 2021 to 11.9% across January–September 2025 — while manufacturing has remained close to 8% of GDP for roughly three decades. Because GDP-by-sector figures blend price and volume effects, some of mining's rising share reflects real expansion (new mines, higher-grade ore, formalisation of artisanal output), but the IIP evidence above shows that a meaningful part of the recent acceleration is a price effect moving faster than the volume series. Manufacturing's flat share, by contrast, is a volume story with no comparable price windfall to inflate it — which is exactly why it has not grown as a share of GDP even as the overall economy has expanded.
Sources: TICGL/TERI Tanzania Business Report Sep 2026; TICGL/TERI Policy Reform Agenda 2026–2031. Manufacturing series approximate (≈8% for three decades). Reproduced exactly as prepared in the source report.
03 — Testing the ClaimsTesting Three Hypotheses Against Tanzanian Data
This report tests three hypotheses drawn from the research brief, using the indicators available as of September 2026.
Hypothesis 1: A rise in gold export value does not automatically produce proportional real GDP growth
SupportedGold export value rose 39% in 2025 while real GDP grew roughly 6%, and mining's own physical-output index (IIP) contracted in three of the last four quarters reviewed even as export value climbed. The 2025 mining boom is overwhelmingly attributable to price, not volume.
Hypothesis 2: Gold contributes more to external and fiscal stability than to broad-based employment and productivity
Partially supported, with a measurement gapGold's contribution to foreign-exchange reserves (US$6.20bn, 4.8 months of import cover), government revenue (a 2025/26 minerals-portfolio target of roughly US$541m) and FDI (US$9.79bn stock, ≈74% of all FDI stock) is well documented in TICGL/TERI's Business Report. Its contribution to broad employment is not well measured: mining is capital-intensive relative to agriculture, tourism or manufacturing, and local-content verification is itself contested — CAG's audit found 33% local procurement in mining against the Ministry of Minerals' reported over-90% figure for a different period and methodology. Until this is reconciled with an independent, comparable measure, Tanzania cannot confidently state how many jobs and how much domestic value gold mining is actually generating.
Hypothesis 3: Gold's development effect depends on the share of revenue converted into productive investment
Supported by the composition of the national budgetOf the TZS 62.33 trillion 2026/27 budget, only TZS 2.33 trillion is classified as new capital (development) investment, against TZS 25.32 trillion in subsidies and TZS 10.13 trillion in wages and pensions. There is, as of September 2026, no published rule that ring-fences a share of mineral revenue specifically for productive investment (Section 8 sets out what such a rule could look like, following R16 of the Tanzania Policy Reform Agenda 2026–2031).
The 2026/27 Budget: Where the Money Is Classified
04 — FunctionHow Gold Actually Works as Finance
None of this means gold is unimportant. It means gold's real economic function in Tanzania today is as a finance channel, and that function should be named and used deliberately rather than mistaken for growth itself.
| Channel | What it does |
|---|---|
| Foreign-exchange finance | Gold-earned USD funds imports of machinery, energy equipment, fertiliser, pharmaceuticals, transport infrastructure and industrial inputs — imports that early-stage industrialisation cannot proceed without. |
| Fiscal finance | Royalties, corporate tax, employee taxes, dividends and fees from mining can fund roads, railways, ports, electricity, irrigation, schools, hospitals, TVET and digital infrastructure — provided this revenue is directed to capital formation rather than absorbed into recurrent consumption. |
| Financial-system liquidity | Gold exports support Bank of Tanzania reserves, exchange-rate stability, and firms' ability to access foreign currency for imports — but liquidity is not the same as productivity; how it is used determines the outcome. |
| Catalyst for supplier industries | Mining can generate domestic demand for engineering, transport, laboratories, insurance, banking, ICT, construction, environmental and maintenance services — this is the channel through which gold could build broader growth, if domestic firms capture the demand rather than foreign suppliers. |
05 — MechanismsWhy Gold Does Not Automatically Become Broad-Based Growth
- Capital intensity. Large-scale mining requires substantial capital but comparatively few workers relative to agriculture, manufacturing, tourism or services — so it can raise exports and GDP without proportionally solving Tanzania's employment challenge.
- Foreign ownership and profit leakage. Where machinery, technical services, insurance, finance and profits flow out of the country, gross export value can be large while the domestic value actually retained is much smaller.
- Price-driven growth carries its own risks. A price windfall can strengthen the shilling, make imports cheaper (undercutting local production's competitiveness), pull capital toward mining and away from other sectors, and raise public spending without a matching rise in productivity — the classic boom-bust pattern documented in the resource-curse literature.
- Weak, poorly measured linkages. With CAG's audited local-procurement figure (33%) sitting so far from the Ministry's reported figure (over 90%), Tanzania cannot currently make a reliable claim about how much mining spending stays in the country — the precondition for gold financing anything beyond the mine gate.
Domestic Value Added ≈ Gross Gold Exports − Imported Inputs − Foreign Service Payments − Profit Repatriation
This illustrates why US$5 billion of gold exports does not mean US$5 billion of value retained in Tanzania. TICGL/TERI does not currently have a published, reconciled estimate of this residual for Tanzania — which is itself a policy gap (see Recommendation 3).
What the international evidence says
IMF research on commodity terms-of-trade finds that while commodity price growth itself tends to raise output per capita, the volatility of commodity terms of trade has a significant negative effect on growth — operating mainly through lower accumulation of physical capital — and that this negative volatility effect can offset the positive effect of a price boom. The same research finds that export diversification among commodity-abundant countries is associated with faster growth. Separately, IMF work on export diversification finds that countries with higher natural-resource rents tend to export fewer distinct products after controlling for other factors — consistent with a Dutch-disease channel — and identifies human capital (especially secondary education) and trade openness as the policy areas most robustly associated with higher diversification.
06 — FrameworkA Scenario Framework for Tanzania's Gold Decade
High price, constant/moderate volume
Large export value, but limited real transformation — the pattern Tanzania's most recent quarters most closely resemble.
Stable price, rising volume
Better evidence of genuine productive expansion; the 2025 Q3 IIP rebound is a partial, single-quarter example of what this could look like sustained.
Falling price, stable volume
Exposes fiscal and external vulnerability built up during the boom — the Botswana diamond experience (Section 7) is the cautionary case.
High price, rising volume
Gold becomes genuine development finance rather than an enclave — requires the fiscal rule and investment discipline set out in Section 8.
Tanzania's task for the next five years is to move deliberately from Scenario A toward Scenario D — using the current price windfall (Scenario A conditions) to build the fiscal rule and productive-investment pipeline that Scenario D requires, before a price correction (Scenario C) arrives on its own timetable, which history suggests it eventually will.
07 — ComparatorsInternational Examples: Converting Resource Rents Into Finance for Growth
| Country | What they did | Lesson for Tanzania | Caveat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Norway (oil & gas) | Channels almost all petroleum revenue into the Government Pension Fund Global (over US$2.2 trillion); a fiscal rule allows only the fund's expected long-run real return (≈3%) into the annual non-oil budget, so resource revenue rarely funds current spending directly. | Do not spend the windfall as it arrives; convert it into financial assets and draw down only a sustainable share. | Built over decades with exceptionally strong institutions; the fiscal-rule principle is transferable even where the scale is not. |
| Chile (copper) | A structural fiscal balance rule and stabilisation funds allow the government to run a surplus when copper prices are high and a deficit when they are low, budgeting against a long-run reference price rather than the spot price. | Budget against a multi-year reference price for gold, not the current spot price, so spending does not collapse when the price corrects. | Requires an independent, technically credible body to set the reference price, insulated from short-term political pressure. |
| Botswana (diamonds) | Established the Pula Fund in 1994 and invested heavily in education, health and infrastructure through a 50:50 Debswana joint venture; more recently added a Diamonds-for-Development Fund for diversification. | A sovereign fund and strong institutions deliver real, sustained gains — but do not, by themselves, remove commodity-price risk. | GDP still contracted sharply (around −3.1% in 2024, with a further sharp fall reported for Q4 2025) when diamond demand weakened, showing the limits of relying on one resource even when it is well managed. |
| Indonesia (nickel) | Banned raw-ore exports and mandated domestic smelting; processed nickel exports rose from near zero in 2014 to more than US$10 billion by 2021. | A resource can be forced to finance industrial capacity through binding processing requirements, not left to fund only an export terminal. | Came with real costs — trade disputes, environmental impact and continued dependence on foreign capital for smelter investment. |
| South Africa (gold, platinum and others) | Mining has fallen to around 8.3% of GDP, well below its historical peak, while finance, real estate and business services (≈21.6%) and manufacturing (≈13.9%) now anchor the economy, built on domestic banks (Standard Bank, Absa) and telecoms (Vodacom). | Mining can remain large in absolute terms while ceasing to dominate the economy — gold should help finance the growth of finance, manufacturing, engineering, logistics and technology, not replace them. | Achieved over many decades, alongside its own significant governance and growth challenges. |
| Ghana (gold) | Gold exceeded 63% of Ghana's exports in 2025, generating large foreign-exchange inflows but sharpening concentration and employment concerns; Ghana has since moved to tighten state involvement in gold marketing (GoldBod) and raise mandatory local sales requirements. | Export success is not the same as structural transformation — the closest peer warning available to Tanzania. | Ghana's own reforms (GoldBod) are recent and their fiscal and reserve effects are still unfolding; treat as an evolving case, not a settled success or failure. |
International comparators combine figures verified in this research round with material carried over from earlier TICGL/TERI drafts; the latter are flagged in Appendix A and should be re-checked before external circulation.
Mining vs. Finance/Manufacturing Share of GDP: South Africa's Structural Shift
08 — Fiscal DesignA Gold-Revenue Allocation Model for Tanzania
Drawing on the Norway and Chile precedents and on R16 of the Tanzania Policy Reform Agenda 2026–2031, TERI proposes that gold-linked fiscal revenue be split into four categories, each governed by an explicit rule rather than year-to-year discretion.
1Permanent revenue
- The share of mineral revenue that can be spent every year without threatening long-run fiscal sustainability, set against a multi-year reference gold price (following Chile's structural-balance logic) rather than the current spot price.
2Temporary windfall
- Revenue arising specifically from price above the reference level. This is, by construction, the least reliable part of mineral revenue and should never be built into recurrent spending commitments (salaries, subsidies) that are difficult to reverse.
3Savings / stabilisation
- A share of the windfall held in a stabilisation mechanism (following Chile) or invested in financial assets (following Norway), available to smooth spending through a future price correction (Scenario C) without forcing sudden austerity.
4Productive investment
- A share of the windfall directed, through a transparent, stage-gated process, into infrastructure with genuine economic return (power, irrigation, logistics), skills and TVET, digital infrastructure, and industrial/SME finance — the channel through which gold becomes Section 4's "catalyst for supplier industries" rather than an enclave.
A legal basis (Finance Act or public-finance legislation), an independent body to set the reference price, annual reporting to Parliament, CAG audit, and a published ceiling on annual withdrawals — without these, a fund becomes another line item rather than a discipline, as Botswana's continued commodity exposure despite the Pula Fund illustrates.
09 — RecommendationsPolicy Recommendations
Recommendations are cross-referenced to the reform register in the Tanzania Policy Reform Agenda 2026–2031 (R1–R25) where a matching reform already exists.
| # | Action | Reform Agenda link | Success measure (KPI) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Legislate the gold-revenue allocation rule in Section 8 — reference price, windfall account, stabilisation share and productive-investment share — through the Finance Bill. | R16 | Rule enacted; first annual reference-price and allocation report published |
| 2 | Reconcile local-content data through a single, independently audited definition of "local" procurement, ending the 33% vs 90%+ discrepancy between CAG and the Ministry of Minerals. | R9 | Audit coverage of local-content plans raised from 1.4% (24 of 1,736) toward the Agenda's 40% (2028) and 80% (2031) targets |
| 3 | Publish a reconciled domestic-value-retained estimate for gold (Section 5's formula, formalised with national-accounts data) as an annual TICGL/TERI-or-official indicator, not gross export value alone. | R16 | First domestic-value-retained baseline published |
| 4 | Track and publish mining IIP alongside export value every quarter, explicitly distinguishing price effects from volume effects in official and TERI commentary, so "gold exports are up" is never reported without its volume counterpart. | — (new indicator) | Quarterly price/volume decomposition published alongside BoT and NBS releases |
| 5 | Direct a defined share of the productive-investment window (Section 8) toward manufacturing, TVET/skills and non-mining project preparation, consistent with R11, R15 and R20. | R11, R15, R20 | Manufacturing share of GDP rising from ≈8% toward the Agenda's 12–15% (2031) target; PPP contracts at financial close rising from 9 (Jun 2026) toward 25 (2031) |
10 — MonitoringScorecard: Is Gold Financing Transformation?
| Indicator | Current status | 2028 milestone (TERI proposed) | 2030/31 target |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gold export value vs mining IIP (price/volume gap) | Value +39% (2025); IIP volume negative in 3 of last 4 quarters reviewed | Published quarterly decomposition; gap narrowing | Volume growth positive and consistent across quarters |
| Windfall-revenue rule | Does not yet exist | Legislated and operating | Multi-year track record; stabilisation balance published |
| Local-content audit coverage | 1.4% (24 of 1,736 plans) | ≥40% | ≥80% (Agenda target) |
| Domestic value retained from gold (new indicator) | Not published | Baseline established | Rising trend |
| Manufacturing share of GDP | ≈8% (flat for three decades) | 10% | 12–15% (Agenda target) |
| Share of budget classified as capital investment | TZS 2.33tn of TZS 62.33tn (2026/27) | Rising trend | Materially higher share, tied to productive-investment window |
| PPP contracts at financial close | 9 (June 2026) | 15 | 25 (Agenda target) |
Proposed Pathway: Key Indicators, Now → 2028 → 2030/31
"The right question for Tanzania is not 'how much did gold exports reach this year?'. It is: 'what productive assets has gold revenue built that will keep generating output after the gold price falls?' Mining output contracted in three of the last four quarters even as export value climbed to record levels, manufacturing stuck near 8% of GDP for three decades, and a local-content figure that two government sources cannot agree on — all point the same direction: Tanzania's recent gold performance has been a finance story, not yet a production story. That is not a criticism of gold. It is a specification of what disciplined policy would need to do to change it."
— TICGL / Tanzania Economic Research Institute (TERI)
11 — ConclusionConclusion
Norway, Chile, Indonesia and South Africa each did some version of legislating a rule and directing resource rents into productive capacity. Botswana and Ghana show what happens when the resource itself is left to do the work of transformation on its own. Tanzania is still choosing which path it is on — and the choice is a policy one, not a geological one: legislate a windfall rule, measure domestic value retained rather than gross export value, reconcile local-content data, and direct a defined share of mineral revenue into the manufacturing, skills and infrastructure investment that actually shows up in real GDP.
12 — Data QualityAppendix A: Data Reconciliation and Gaps
| Issue | Figures that differ | Recommended action |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 Q3 mining IIP, quarter-on-quarter change | +2.5% per the NBS 2025Q3 IIP release text reviewed vs +7.9% per a TanzaniaInvest summary of the same release | Re-verify directly against the published NBS PDF table before external citation |
| Local content in mining | CAG audit: 33% local procurement (2020–2024) vs Ministry of Minerals: over 90% (Jul 2025–Mar 2026, different period and methodology) | Use both, flagged, until an independent reconciled figure exists (see Recommendation 2) |
| Mining share of GDP, 2025 | 11.9% average for Jan–Sep 2025 (Business Report); some Q1 2026 commentary cited elsewhere suggests a higher single-quarter figure (≈13%) not independently verified in this round | Use the Business Report's Jan–Sep 2025 average as primary; confirm any single-quarter 2026 figure against NBS before use |
| Botswana GDP contraction figures | ≈3.1% (2024) and a further sharp Q4 2025 decline cited in TERI's companion Gold Dependence Report from AfDB's August 2026 Country Focus Report | Re-confirm exact figures against Statistics Botswana / AfDB before external circulation |
| Domestic value added from gold exports | No official or TICGL/TERI-published estimate exists; Section 5's formula is illustrative only | Commission or compile a first estimate using import-content and profit-repatriation data from BoT balance-of-payments statistics |
13 — SourcesAppendix B: Sources
This page is built directly from TERI's report "Gold Is Finance, Not Growth" (September 2026), a companion analysis to the Tanzania Business Report (September 2026), the Tanzania Policy Reform Agenda 2026–2031, and TERI's companion reports on gold-export dependence and services receipts. Figures marked "TERI calculation" or "illustrative" are arithmetic on cited data.
- TICGL/TERI, Tanzania Business Report, September 2026.
- TICGL/TERI, Tanzania Policy Reform Agenda 2026–2031 (information as of 20 September 2026).
- National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Quarterly Index of Industrial Production releases, 2025 Q1–2026 Q1.
- TICGL/TERI, Gold Dependence Policy Report (companion analysis, September 2026), for the rolling gold-export-value series.
- TICGL/TERI, Services Receipts: Tanzania's Lower-Risk Growth Engine (companion analysis, September 2026).
- Two internal TICGL/TERI research notes on "gold as finance, not growth", which supplied the hypothesis framework, indicator list and revenue-allocation model.
- IMF research on commodity terms-of-trade volatility and export diversification (cited in Section 5).
- African Development Bank, Country Focus Report 2026: Botswana (August 2026).
Request the Full Report or a Briefing
This page summarises TICGL/TERI's "Gold Is Finance, Not Growth" report. Institutions, investors, government agencies and development partners may request the full report or a tailored briefing — including the revenue-allocation model and a quarterly price/volume dashboard concept — directly from TERI.
✉️ Request via economist@ticgl.com →14 — Quick AnswersFrequently Asked Questions
Is Tanzania's gold boom a price story or a production story?
Overwhelmingly a price story in the most recent data. Gold export value rose 39% in 2025, but NBS's own Index of Industrial Production (IIP), which measures physical output volume, shows mining and quarrying output falling in three of the last four quarters reviewed: −2.9% (2025 Q1), −3.8% (2025 Q2), +2.5% (2025 Q3), and −4.9% (2026 Q1), even as the rolling 12-month gold export value kept climbing to a record US$5.20 billion by 2026 Q1.
Why doesn't a higher gold price automatically mean faster real GDP growth?
Real GDP measures the volume of production after removing price changes; gold export value measures price times volume in current dollars. A world gold price increase can raise export value sharply with no change in how much Tanzania actually produces. In the illustrative 2025 comparison, gold export value rose 39% (an index of 139 against a 2024 baseline of 100) while real GDP grew only about 6%.
Has manufacturing grown as a share of Tanzania's economy?
No. Manufacturing has stayed close to 8% of GDP for roughly three decades (8.0% in 2021 and 2023–24, 7.8% in Jan–Sep 2025), even as mining's share climbed from 7.2% (2021) to 11.9% (Jan–Sep 2025). Manufacturing's flat share reflects a volume story with no comparable price windfall, which is exactly why it has not grown even as the overall economy has expanded.
What should Tanzania do with gold revenue if it is finance rather than growth?
TERI proposes a four-part gold-revenue allocation model, drawing on Norway and Chile: permanent revenue spent against a multi-year reference price; temporary windfall revenue treated as inherently unreliable and never built into recurrent spending; a savings/stabilisation share to smooth future price corrections; and a productive-investment share directed to infrastructure, skills, TVET, digital infrastructure and industrial/SME finance, backed by a legal basis, an independent reference-price body, annual reporting to Parliament and CAG audit.
How much of Tanzania's 2026/27 budget is capital investment versus recurrent spending?
Of the TZS 62.33 trillion 2026/27 budget, only TZS 2.33 trillion (about 3.7%) is classified as new capital (development) investment, against TZS 25.32 trillion in subsidies and TZS 10.13 trillion in wages and pensions. As of September 2026, there is no published rule that ring-fences a share of mineral revenue specifically for productive investment.
Muhtasari kwa Kiswahili
Dhahabu ni Fedha, Si Ukuaji: Kwa Nini Utajiri wa Maliasili Hauwezi Kujenga Uchumi Peke Yake — Mauzo ya dhahabu yaliongezeka 39% mwaka 2025, lakini Kielezo cha Uzalishaji wa Viwanda (IIP) cha NBS chenyewe — kinachopima kiasi halisi cha uzalishaji, bila kuathiriwa na bei — kinaonyesha uzalishaji wa madini ukishuka katika robo tatu kati ya nne za hivi karibuni: -2.9% (2025 Q1), -3.8% (2025 Q2), +2.5% (2025 Q3), na -4.9% (2026 Q1), wakati thamani ya mauzo ya dhahabu ikiendelea kupanda hadi USD 5.20 bilioni.
Tatizo la msingi: Tanzania mara nyingi inachanganya vitu vitatu tofauti — thamani ya mauzo ya dhahabu (bei mara kiasi), GDP ya nominal (bei za sasa), na GDP halisi (kiasi cha uzalishaji baada ya kuondoa mabadiliko ya bei). Mwaka 2025, thamani ya mauzo ya dhahabu iliongezeka 39% wakati GDP halisi ilikua takribani 6% tu. Pengo hilo ni athari ya bei, si ukuaji halisi wa uzalishaji.
Sekta ya viwanda haijakua: Mchango wa madini kwenye GDP umepanda kutoka 7.2% (2021) hadi 11.9% (Jan–Sep 2025). Lakini mchango wa viwanda umebaki karibu 8% kwa miongo mitatu. Hii ni kwa sababu viwanda havina "windfall" ya bei kama dhahabu — ukuaji wake ni wa kiasi halisi cha uzalishaji, si bei.
Kwa nini dhahabu haigeuki kiotomatiki kuwa ukuaji mpana: Uchimbaji mkubwa unahitaji mtaji mkubwa lakini unaajiri watu wachache. Sehemu kubwa ya faida huenda kwa wamiliki wa kigeni. Bei ya juu inaweza kuimarisha shilingi na kufanya bidhaa za ndani zishindwe kushindana na zinazoagizwa. Na takwimu za local content zinazopingana (CAG 33% dhidi ya Wizara zaidi ya 90%) zinaonyesha Tanzania haina uhakika wa kiasi gani cha fedha za madini kinabaki nchini.
Bajeti inathibitisha hoja hii: Kati ya bajeti ya TZS trilioni 62.33 ya 2026/27, ni TZS trilioni 2.33 tu (3.7%) iliyoainishwa kama uwekezaji mpya wa mtaji, dhidi ya TZS trilioni 25.32 ya ruzuku. Hakuna kanuni bado inayotenga sehemu ya mapato ya madini kwa ajili ya uwekezaji wa uzalishaji.
Mapendekezo ya TICGL/TERI: (i) kutunga kanuni ya ugawaji wa mapato ya dhahabu — bei ya kumbukumbu, akaunti ya windfall, sehemu ya utulivu na sehemu ya uwekezaji wa uzalishaji; (ii) kupatanisha takwimu za local content; (iii) kuchapisha makadirio ya thamani halisi ya dhahabu inayobaki nchini; (iv) kuchapisha IIP ya madini pamoja na thamani ya mauzo kila robo mwaka; (v) kuelekeza sehemu ya dirisha la uwekezaji kwenye viwanda, ujuzi na miradi nje ya madini.
Hitimisho: Swali sahihi si "mauzo ya dhahabu yamefika kiasi gani mwaka huu?" bali ni "ni rasilimali gani za uzalishaji ambazo mapato ya dhahabu yamejenga, ambazo zitaendelea kuzalisha hata bei ya dhahabu ikishuka?" Norway, Chile, Indonesia na Afrika Kusini zilifanya toleo fulani la hili kupitia kanuni za kisheria na nidhamu ya uwekezaji. Botswana na Ghana zinaonyesha kinachotokea rasilimali yenyewe ikiachwa kufanya kazi ya mabadiliko peke yake. Tanzania bado inachagua njia itakayopita.
- Thamani ya mauzo ya dhahabu: +39% (2025); GDP halisi: ≈6%
- Uzalishaji wa madini (IIP): hasi katika robo 3 kati ya 4 za hivi karibuni
- Mchango wa viwanda kwenye GDP: ≈8%, bila kubadilika kwa miongo mitatu
- Bajeti ya uwekezaji wa mtaji: 3.7% tu ya bajeti ya 2026/27
Chanzo: TICGL/TERI, ripoti ya Dhahabu ni Fedha, Si Ukuaji, Septemba 2026. Kwa maelezo zaidi wasiliana na: economist@ticgl.com.