Tanzania's Economy Grew 5.9 Percent in 2025. Which Sectors Drove the Expansion?

DAR ES SALAAM — Tanzania's real GDP grew 5.9 percent in 2025, the National Development Plan 2026/27 confirms, citing National Bureau of Statistics data. The growth rate is the highest in the five-year series from 2021 to 2025 and establishes a consistent upward trajectory that provides the baseline for the plan's medium-term targets. What drove the 5.9 percent Finance and insurance led all sectors at 15.7 percent growth. The banking sector's strong performance, confirmed in separate analysis by NMB and CRDB's record profits in FY2025 which Uchumi360 documented, reflects an economy generating the corporate banking, trade finance, and project lending demand that large infrastructure investment and manufacturing growth create. Tanzania's two largest commercial banks together posted PAT of TZS 1,488.7 billion in 2025, and the banking sector's total net profit grew 14.7 percent. Electricity and gas grew 11.8 percent, the clearest direct output of the Julius Nyerere Hydropower Project whose nine turbines were connected to the national grid in FY2025/26. The generation capacity increase from 4,437.53MW to 4,522.54MW and the grid extension to 8,500.38km supported the electricity sector's contribution to GDP. Mining grew 9.4 percent, contributing 10.3 percent of GDP in 2025 up from 7.8 percent in 2024. Gold exports, tanzanite, graphite, nickel, and coal all expanded. Total mineral export earnings reached USD 5,401.9 million in 2025. ICT at 8.8 percent reflects the digital infrastructure investment whose deployment Uchumi360's TCRA analysis documented: 111.9 million mobile connections, 17,690 Gbps international bandwidth, and 4G coverage at 94.2 percent of the population. Transport and storage at 8.0 percent reflects the SGR's contribution: 2,515,203 passengers carried in July 2025 to March 2026, up 22.4 percent from the prior year period, and 102,452 tonnes of freight moved in the same period. The sector contributed USD 2.79 billion in foreign exchange earnings. The monetary conditions that supported growth The Bank of Tanzania's reduction of the Central Bank Rate from 6.00 to 5.75 percent in the July to December 2025 period and the maintenance of interbank lending rates within the ±2 percent corridor created the monetary conditions that supported private sector credit growth at 23.6 percent, the fastest in the series shown in the plan. Mining and quarrying led sectoral credit growth at 91.1 percent, followed by commerce at 49.7 percent, transport and communications at 29.4 percent, and agriculture at 28.9 percent. Foreign exchange reserves at USD 6,329 million by December 2025, covering 4.9 months of imports against a 4-month minimum target, provided the external stability buffer that allowed monetary easing without exchange rate pressure.