On 7 September 2021, the IMF approved US$567.25 million in emergency financial assistance to support Tanzania’s efforts in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic[32] by addressing the urgent health, humanitarian, and economic costs.

Significant measures have been taken to liberalize the Tanzanian economy along market lines and encourage both foreign and domestic private investment.

Beginning in 1986, the Government of Tanzania embarked on an adjustment program to dismantle the socialist (Ujamaa) economic controls and encourage more active participation of the private sector in the economy.

The program included a comprehensive package of policies which reduced the budget deficit and improved monetary control, substantially depreciated the overvalued exchange rate, liberalized the trade regime, removed most price controls, eased restrictions on the marketing of food crops, freed interest rates, and initiated a restructuring of the financial sector.

The IMF's PSI program provides policy support and signaling to participating low-income countries and is intended for countries that have usually achieved a reasonable growth performance, low underlying inflation, an adequate level of official international reserves, and have begun to establish external and net domestic debt sustainability.

Tanzania has qualified for debt relief under the enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative.

This is a chart of trend of gross domestic product of Tanzania at market prices estimated by the International Monetary Fund with figures in millions of shillings.

[43] This strong dependence on agriculture, makes Tanzania's economy highly vulnerable to weather shocks and fluctuating commodity prices.

76% of Tanzania's population subsist thanks to agriculture and, due to the lack of knowledge and infrastructure to develop and implement some kind of agricultural technology, any droughts, floods, or temperature shocks can severely damage the living standards of those people and create huge increases in unemployment, hunger, and malnutrition rates, as well as, in really severe case, mortality rates due to starvation.

[17]: page 37  This component includes mining and quarrying, manufacturing, electricity and natural gas, water supply, and construction.

[50] Chinese firms have been showing major interest in Tanzania's mineral deposits; an announcement was made in late 2011 of a plan by the Sichuan Hongda Group, to invest about US$3 billion to develop the Mchuchuma coal and Liganga iron ore projects in the south of the country.

[54]: page 5  The government is building a 532 kilometres (331 mi) gas pipeline from Mnazi Bay to Dar es Salaam, with a scheduled completion in 2015.

[61] The Indian Ocean, off the coast of Mozambique and Tanzania, is proving to be a rich hunting ground for natural gas exploration.

According to US Geological Survey estimates, the combined gas reserves of Mozambique and Tanzania could be as high as 250 trillion cubic feet.

[64][65] In 2014, Tanzania's natural gas production was 19 billion cubic feet (Bcf), a 30% decline from five years prior, but increased in mid-2015 following the commencement of operations at the Mnazi Bay Concession and a new pipeline to Dar es Salaam.

Managed by ARA Petroleum Tanzania Limited (APT), this field is expected to begin producing substantial gas quantities for domestic use within a year.

Tanzania has mineral resources and a largely untapped tourism sector, which might make it a viable market for foreign investment.

[70] Zanzibar's economy is based primarily on the production of cloves (90% grown on the island of Pemba), the principal foreign exchange earner.

The Government of Zanzibar has been more aggressive than its mainland counterpart in instituting economic reforms and has legalized foreign exchange bureaus on the islands.

The island's manufacturing sector is limited mainly to import substitution industries, such as cigarettes, shoes, and process agricultural products.