Tanzania and U.S. partner to develop regional pharmaceutical hub

Tanzania and the United States have agreed to expand strategic health cooperation, with Dar es Salaam aiming to become a regional pharmaceutical production and distribution hub. This initiative seeks to serve the Southern African Development Community (SADC) market, which comprises over 300 million people.

To support this, the Tanzanian government is developing a pharmaceutical special economic zone at Mloganzila. Efforts are also underway to align tax and tariff arrangements for raw materials and packaging with regional standards to make locally manufactured medicines more competitive against imports. Tanzania has also been selected to lead the SADC’s Pooled Procurement Services to consolidate demand for health products across 16 member states.