STRENGTHENING TRADE INDIA & TANZANIA

At Dawa Ltd, Tanzania's oldest and largest pharmaceutical manufacturer, India is our primary API source country by a wide margin. We manufacture over 130 product lines at our Dar es Salaam facility, and approximately 70% of our active ingredients come from Gujarat and Hyderabad API manufacturers. The quality improvements in Indian pharma over the past decade have been remarkable — the WHO-GMP facilities we audit in Ahmedabad and Visakhapatnam now meet standards that rival anything in Europe. For Tanzania specifically, TMDA registration is our gateway requirement — WHO-GMP pre-qualification from the Indian facility is the fastest path to TMDA acceptance, and we work only with pre-qualified Indian manufacturers. One important point for Indian suppliers: if your product will be distributed in Zanzibar, you need separate ZRBS registration in addition to TMDA mainland registration, and gelatin capsules must be Halal-certified for the Zanzibar market. For our mainland operations, standard gelatin is acceptable — Tanzania is a mixed Christian-Muslim country and we have separate product lines for different regional markets. The Bank of India Tanzania branch in Dar es Salaam has been our trade finance partner for 20 years — they understand India–Tanzania business better than any bank in this market.

Geita Gold Mine — AngloGold Ashanti's flagship East Africa operation — sources significant volumes of Indian industrial equipment. Our dewatering systems are Kirloskar-based: we run 13 WPIL pump sets for pit dewatering (Geita sits close to Lake Victoria's water table, so groundwater management is a perpetual operational priority), and our backup power system uses Kirloskar Green DG sets throughout the processing plant. The quality is consistently good — and the 25-35% price advantage versus equivalent European equipment is commercially significant at the scale we procure. For Indian suppliers new to Tanzania's mining sector: AngloGold Ashanti has a global approved vendor database, and if you are registered there from our Brazilian, Ghanaian, or Australian operations, your Geita access is essentially automatic — our procurement team in Johannesburg coordinates global vendor approvals. Tanzania Mining Commission also requires local supplier registration, but this is straightforward with ISO 9001 documentation. Emergency parts from India arrive at Julius Nyerere International Airport within 48 hours of dispatch from Mumbai — Air India and Ethiopian Airlines are our primary carriers, and Geita is only 3 hours by charter aircraft from Dar es Salaam.

My grandfather came from Surat to Dar es Salaam in 1947 with a roll of fabric and a sewing machine. My father built a wholesale textile business in Kariakoo. And today I run three shops and a DSM-to-Arusha distribution network supplying khanga, kitenge, and Islamic wear across mainland Tanzania and into Rwanda and Uganda. India remains our primary source for everything: khanga fabric from the Rajkot and Surat printing mills (Indian factories print the Swahili proverbs in Gujarati-owned factories — this is a deeply Indian-East African collaboration that has existed for 100 years), black polyester for buibui (Muslim women's clothing — significant market in coastal Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar), white cotton for kanzu (men's Islamic gown). The Surat–Kariakoo trade corridor is one of the most established Indian Ocean commercial routes in existence — every Indian textile exporter who builds a Dar es Salaam relationship immediately gains access to the entire EAC market through distributors like us. Kariakoo is not just a Tanzanian market; it is the textile wholesaling hub for Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, and DRC. Come to Kariakoo and you will understand what Indian Ocean trade really means.