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Tanzania eyes law to promote foreign investment

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The Tanzanian government has suggested changing its rules to give Tanzanians living abroad special status so they can open businesses in important, high-priority economic sectors to attract more foreign investment.

The government has introduced the Miscellaneous Amendments Bill 2024 to Parliament for discussion, aiming to offer special status to Tanzanians residing abroad so they can establish businesses in their home country, thereby relaxing its burdensome regulations and legislation.

Through the Diaspora Tanzanite card, Tanzanians living abroad will be eligible for inheritance rights and investment incentives under the proposed immigration law revisions.

Only citizens of Tanzania have been allowed to possess land and other properties. The Miscellaneous Amendments Act, 2024, was released on June 26 and suggests amending the Land Act, cap 113, and the Immigration Act, cap 54, to grant land occupancy titles to Tanzanians residing abroad.

Tanzania is one of the African nations with stringent immigration laws and restrictions on property ownership rights that are placed on foreign nationals and residents who hold dual citizenship.

Before this, President Samia Suluhu Hassan had pledged to examine the Immigration Act. During her six-day official visit to Seoul in June, she addressed Tanzanians living in South Korea and promised her government would make sure Tanzanians living abroad would receive special treatment, including the opportunity to settle in Tanzania without having to go through a laborious visa application process.

As of 2018, the manufacturing sector in Tanzania attracted the greatest concentration of foreign direct investment (FDI) among all economic sectors, according to Statista. It totalled 1.4 billion dollars, which was split among 133 projects. After that, FDI in agricultural activities totalled more than half a billion dollars.

She promised to provide the legislative framework necessary to allow Tanzanians living abroad to send money home through their families to invest in, acquire, and use technology and knowledge that are primarily required for manufacturing, services, and agricultural output.

Samia informed the Tanzanians in Seoul that by 2023, Tanzanians living abroad had invested almost Tsh280 billion ($106 million) in housing, while others had purchased shares in UTT Asset Management and Investors Services (UTT AMIS) for Tsh6.45 billion ($2.4 million).

Through unified laws throughout the EAC, the Tanzania Investment Center (TIC) has been encouraging members of the East African Community (EAC) to form cooperative companies in Tanzania.

To identify and help Tanzanians living abroad register for business and investments, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the East African Co-operation built a diaspora database. The database is based on the availability of enough land that would be a good investment.

Tanzania lacked active agricultural investments, had a weak agro-industrial basis, and received little revenue from cash crops despite having abundant agricultural land.

Tanzania has 44 million hectares of arable land in total, according to data from the Ministry of Agriculture, but only 15 million of those hectares are being farmed for both food and commercial crops.

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Dangote insists refinery has 500 million litres of petrol to meet Nigeria’s needs

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Aliko Dangote, the chairman of Nigeria’s Dangote oil refinery, has claimed a 500 million litre gasoline stockpile, refuting claims by some oil marketers that they had to augment Dangote’s supplies with imports to address fuel shortages.

Africa’s wealthiest man claimed to be a guest of the Nigerian President, Bola Tinubu, along with the finance minister, the head of the state-owned NNPC, and oil regulators at a meeting in Abuja on Tuesday.

The goal was to reconsider a policy mandating that NNPC sell crude oil to the Dangote refinery in local naira currency in an attempt to relieve pressure on foreign exchange and assist the massive refinery in obtaining enough crude to meet its 650,000-barrel-per-day capacity.

After the discussion, Dangote explained that he should not be held responsible for fuel shortages in Africa’s top oil-producing nation because his company does not deal in the retail sale of petrol.

He added that it costs him money to keep fuel in storage tanks.

“I expect the NNPC and marketers to stop importing. They should come and collect; we have everything they need,” said Dangote.
Two weeks ago, local fuel traders began increasing imports, claiming that the Dangote refinery was unable to meet domestic demand, exacerbating fuel shortages.

In September, the Dangote Oil Refinery in Lagos started processing petroleum to produce 25 million litres per day. The objective is to progressively boost output to 35 million litres per day, which Dangote thinks will be enough to satisfy regional demand. However, the industry regulator stated at an oil conference in Lagos on Monday that Nigeria uses 45 to 50 million litres of petrol every day.

President Tinubu advised stakeholders to concentrate on providing enough petrol for domestic consumption to lessen reliance on imports, according to a government spokesperson’s statement.

In order to settle the naira pricing of oil and refined goods, he also instructed them to use Afreximbank, the financial adviser for the naira crude sale plan.

The refinery was forced to rely on costly imports after Dangote filed a complaint alleging that oil majors were preventing it from accessing locally produced oil by selling it above market value or claiming it was unavailable. Previously, Dangote had to purchase crude on the international market.

The plan to sell crude in naira will continue, according to Wale Edun, Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, and the government would not meddle in setting the oil industry’s exchange rate.

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Ghana considers imports from Nigeria’s Dangote oil refinery

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The head of Ghana’s oil regulator stated on Monday that once Nigeria’s Dangote Oil Refinery was fully operational, Ghana might purchase petroleum products from the facility, reducing the need for more costly exports from Europe.

Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, the chairman of Ghana’s National Petroleum Authority, stated at the OTL Africa Downstream oil conference in Lagos that this might result in the elimination of $400 million in petroleum imports from Europe each month.

“If the refinery reaches 650,000 bpd a day capacity, all that volume cannot be consumed by Nigeria alone, so instead of us importing as we do right now from Rotterdam, it will be much easier for us to import from Nigeria and I believe that will bring down our prices,” Hamid said.

The Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote constructed the Dangote Oil refinery, which is anticipated to run close to capacity by the end of the year and maybe reach full capacity in the first quarter of 2025, according to analysts.

Hamid claimed that by eliminating freight expenses, buying from Nigeria instead of Europe would result in lower prices for other goods and services. He predicted that African nations would eventually settle on a single currency, which would reduce demand for US dollars.

In the second quarter of 2024, Ghana’s GDP rose 6.9% year over year, primarily due to the robust growth of the extractive industry, which increased demand for petroleum.

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