Revenues from small-scale miners' activities have been increasing at an average of 20 per cent per annum for the past two years with the government expecting to meet the target of the sector's contribution of 10 per cent to the national income.
Speaking at the opening of the small-scale industrial minerals conference in Dar es Salaam on Wednesday, the Minister of Minerals Mr Doto Biteko said such growth, has grown proportionally with increasing revenues reaped by small-scale miners to increase to 1.19tri/- by February this year from 451.6m/- in 2021.
"This achievement has been reached after concerted efforts of the government to make small-scale miners grow economically, create more job opportunities and contribute to economic development," he said.
The Minister said during small-scale miners' stakeholders' meeting aimed to discuss challenges facing the sub-sector, especially on safety, finance and business education.
The two-day meeting went hand in hand with the launching of a new strategy to provide safety, financial and business market education to the miners.
Mr Biteko highlighted that such success came mostly from precious metals and other industries where gold took the lion's share by providing about 80 per cent of total revenues gained.
He said one of the initiatives for increasing income was due to recognising small-scale miners involved in industrial minerals and jewellery as well as the establishment of mineral trading centres countrywide.
"In the past few years, Tanzania established around 42 mining trading centres in different regions and towns, where jewellery and other types of mineral sellers can sell their minerals easily without travelling long distances.
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This has led to an increase of trade and we hope this sector will grow further to employ more people," Minister Biteko said
To improve more of the sector, Mr Biteko directed Stamico to convene a meeting with small-scale mining stakeholders with financial institutions to ponder on how this sector can receive loans as a way of facilitating capital.
Earlier, Stamico Managing Director, Dr Venance Mwasse, underscored that small-scale miners in the country need a good mechanism for receiving cash and in-kind loans to facilitate their activities.
He said that some can't afford to purchase the heavy machines used for extractive works, but instead, there is a need for coming up with an arrangement for short-term lending at an agreed amount of money to push for more production.
According to him, Stamico will work more in research on what to be done for miners to produce and process industrial minerals meeting standards needed in local and international markets.
