Tanzania gets $45 mln World Bank loan to improve mining sector

DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) – The World Bank has approved a $45 million loan for Tanzania, Africa’s fourth-biggest gold producer, to help improve its mining sector especially among small-scale producers.

The funds will help to create a viable domestic mining industry in poor, rural areas where unregulated artisanal and small-scale mining takes place, Philippe Dongier, the Bank’s country director for Tanzania, said in a statement.

The project will train small-scale miners in jewellery-making and help them access markets and financing, the bank said.

Tanzania also has deposits of coal, uranium, diamond and precious stones.

Dozens of small scale miners are killed each year in collapsing mines in Tanzania where unsafe and unregulated illegal mining is widespread, in the country ranked Africa’s fourth-largest gold producer after South Africa, Ghana and Mali.

The mining and quarrying sector expanded by 5.2 percent in the third quarter of 2014 from 3.3 percent in the previous year.