Tanzania has become very good at announcing investment. The harder question is: How much of it actually gets built?
Government figures are impressive. According to the Tanzania Investment and Special Economic Zones Authority (TISEZA), Tanzania registered 915 investment projects worth $10.95 billion in 2025. In 2021, there were only 252 projects worth about $3.7 billion.
That means registered projects more than tripled within four years, while their stated investment value almost tripled. That is progress.
But registration is not construction. And proposed investment capital is not necessarily money that has entered Tanzania. The difference matters.
In 2024, Tanzania registered 901 projects valued at about $9.3 billion, according to official investment figures. Yet UN Trade and Development, UNCTAD, recorded Tanzania’s actual foreign direct investment inflows that year at approximately $1.718 billion.
The two figures measure different things and should not be directly subtracted from each other. Registered projects include domestic as well as foreign investors, and their stated capital may be invested over several years. But that is exactly the point.
When government announces “$9.3 billion in investment”, citizens need to know how much represents proposed projects and how much represents money already invested.
Otherwise, investment intentions risk being presented as investment achievements.
This becomes more important because Tanzania is about to place an extraordinary amount of responsibility on private capital.
The Fourth Five-Year Development Plan, covering 2026–2031, requires about TSh477 trillion. Government expects roughly 70 percent—about TSh334 trillion—to come from the private sector. Around TSh170 trillion is expected to be mobilised through public-private partnerships.
That strategy will succeed only if Tanzania becomes exceptionally good at converting proposals into projects.
There are reasons to worry. In June 2026, National Assembly Speaker Mussa Zungu ordered officials to produce a list of stalled PPP projects, saying delays were costing government revenue and slowing infrastructure development.
Some investment stories have already spent years in the space between promise and implementation.
Consider Liganga and Mchuchuma. The projects were designed around a joint venture in which China’s Sichuan Hongda Group holds 80 percent and the Tanzanian government, through the National Development Corporation, holds 20 percent.
Mchuchuma is supposed to exploit an estimated 428 million tonnes of coal, including a proposed 600MW power station. Liganga has an estimated 126 million tonnes of iron ore and is designed to produce one million tonnes of steel annually.
The exploration work dates back to 2012 and 2013. More than a decade later, government was still reporting negotiations with the investor over implementation.
Then there is Tanzania’s LNG project. Its estimated cost is approximately $42 billion—almost four times the total value of all investment projects registered in Tanzania in 2025. The project could unlock more than 47 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Yet negotiations involving Shell, Equinor and other partners have repeatedly been delayed over commercial and fiscal terms.
These are not arguments against Tanzania’s investment policy. They are arguments for measuring it properly.
The government’s own ambitions are expanding. In June 2026, a UNDP-supported investment dealbook presented 68 supposedly investment-ready public projects worth $6.57 billion, covering energy, roads, tourism, water, industries, fisheries and logistics. Wonderful.
Now comes the accountability question: How many will reach financial close? How many will begin construction? How much capital will actually be deployed? How many promised jobs will exist three years from now? And when projects stall, who explains why?
Tanzania should publish an annual Investment Delivery Scorecard tracking every major registered project from approval to financing, construction and operation.
Attraction is only the beginning. A government should not ultimately be judged by the billions investors promise at conferences, signing ceremonies and registration desks. It should be judged by what gets built.
