Tanzania’s investment architecture has come a long way. The 1990s ushered in liberalisation and the National Investment Policy of 1996, followed by the establishment of the Tanzania Investment Centre (TIC) and the introduction of investment incentives.
The Investment Act, 2022 strengthened investor facilitation and protection. In 2025, the Tanzania Investment Centre merged with the Export Processing Zones Authority to form the Tanzania Investment and Special Economic Zones Authority (TISEZA).
The forthcoming National Investment Strategy comes at an important moment. The country has demonstrated a strong capacity to attract investment. TISEZA reports that registered projects increased from 252 in 2021 to 915 in 2025, while approved investment capital rose from $3.7 billion to $10.95 billion.
The challenge, however, is no longer simply how to attract more investment, but how to convert approved projects into productive enterprises, jobs, exports, technology and broad-based prosperity. The strategy should therefore be strengthened in several important areas.
First, it should shift from an approval-centred to an implementation-centred approach. Time and again, we have seen reports from TIC and TISEZA highlighting the number and value of projects approved without indicating how many of those projects have actually been implemented.
The strategy should therefore establish clear targets for the proportion of approved projects that actually commence operations, the amount of capital actually invested, jobs created, exports generated and government revenue collected. TISEZA should publish an annual “investment implementation scorecard” showing projects approved against projects actually implemented.
Second, the strategy should make the business environment a central investment priority. Investors continue to identify regulatory uncertainty, bureaucratic delays, inconsistent tax administration and weak government-private sector trust as significant obstacles.
The strategy should therefore introduce binding service-delivery timelines for licences, permits, land allocation, tax decisions and other approvals.
Third, the strategy should give greater attention to domestic investors. For too long, investment promotion has been treated as synonymous with attracting foreign capital. Local investors, including SMEs and Tanzanian institutional investors, should also be recognised as important investors and assessed using the same criteria as foreign investors, including job creation, technology transfer and exports.
Giving domestic investors greater opportunities to invest will deepen local ownership and strengthen domestic value chains.
Fourth, regional balance must become an explicit objective. Investment tends to concentrate in areas where infrastructure and markets are already developed. The strategy should therefore identify investment corridors and special economic zones in regions with untapped agricultural, mineral, tourism and industrial potential.
Investment promotion should deliberately support secondary cities and rural economic transformation rather than concentrating investment in Dar es Salaam and surrounding areas.
Finally, the strategy should institutionalise accountability. The private sector, local investors, financial institutions, local governments and civil society should have structured opportunities to review implementation annually.
The government should also appoint relationship managers for high-value investment projects, similar to the approach used by banks in managing important clients.
In conclusion, the proposed strategy should be implementation-driven, investor-focused, geographically inclusive, transparent and measurable. Its ultimate test should not be how many projects are approved, but how many become successful businesses that genuinely improve the lives of Tanzanians.
