Tanzania's Minister of Minerals Anthony Mavunde tabled a TZS 174.98 billion (approximately USD 70 million) mining budget for the 2026/27 fiscal year before the National Assembly on April 27, anchoring the allocation on a Critical and Strategic Minerals Strategy and a Top-4 global niobium producer ambition through the Panda Hill project.

The budget targets TZS 1.41 trillion (approximately USD 565 million) in mining-sector revenue collection over the year. Mining's contribution to Tanzania's GDP rose to 11.9 percent in the first three quarters of 2025, up from 10.1 percent in 2024 and 9.1 percent in 2023, while mineral exports reached USD 5.40 billion in 2025 — a 31.1 percent year-on-year increase, driven primarily by gold, which alone exported USD 4.75 billion (up 39 percent).

The Critical and Strategic Minerals Strategy targets lithium, graphite, helium, nickel, cobalt, titanium, copper, aluminium, niobium and rare earth elements. Between July 2025 and March 2026 the Mining Commission issued 454 critical-and-strategic mineral licences, of which 271 covered graphite, 136 nickel and 28 rare earths. The strategy formalises Tanzania's framework for licensing, value-addition and revenue-share terms across these mineral classes.

The flagship Panda Hill niobium project, whose development agreement was signed on March 24, is targeted to deliver 1,600 direct jobs and roughly USD 1.77 billion in local procurement, with government revenue of approximately TZS 2 trillion across royalties, taxes, levies and a 16 percent free-carried equity dividend. The Government has separately designated Buzwagi area in Kahama District for mineral value-addition industries.

Local content was a defining theme of the budget speech. "It is prohibited for any non-Tanzanian to supply goods or provide services that have been declared to be performed exclusively by Tanzanians," Mr Mavunde told the Assembly. The Ministry will also expand the Geological Survey of Tanzania's High Resolution Airborne Geophysical Survey coverage from 16 percent of the country today to 34 percent in 2026/27, with a 50 percent target by 2030.

Combined with the strategy's focus on strategic minerals, the budget signals that Tanzania intends to use the 2026/27 fiscal cycle to lock in the procurement, licensing and value-addition architecture for the next phase of mining-sector growth — a phase increasingly weighted toward strategic minerals rather than the gold cycle that has dominated export earnings to date.