Seeking advice: Ex-pat starting business in TZ.

Hi:

It is very interesting to me that you want to have your own business in Tanzania. I am getting ready to move to Tanzania myself and thinking along the same way. Have you tried to look for Tanzanian business laws online? So far, I have found a couple of web-sites, such as
1. www.doingbusiness.org/LawLibrary/?economyid=185 (Tanzania - Business Laws - Doing Business - from The World Bank Group
The Doing Business law library is the largest free online collection of business laws and regulations. We link to official government sources wherever ...)
2. www.leat.or.tz/law - Laws of Tanzania.
3. Also, I found interesting the following article: "Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania adopt cyber laws : Internet Business Law
Kenya , Uganda and Tanzania are in the process of adopting harmonized cyber laws to enable the establishment of e-government and e-commerce programs, ..." at
www.ibls.com/internet_law_news_portal_v … ?s...id...

My husband cousin's family has businesses in Kenya, Tanzania and some other countries in Africa. What I learned from them is that you need first to consider, what kind of business you want to be in and in which part of the country. Then you need to look for specific laws that apply, in addition to Tanzanian business regulatory laws. For example, if you wanted to build an apartment/condo complex (and then rent or sell condos) in a city centre in Dar-es-Salaam, it may be worthwhile to know that National Housing Authority expects to be your business co-owner at 25% immediately, and then get 50% of your business in 12 yrs.

The good news is that there are so many business opportunities in Tanzania. I myself listed about 6-7 immediate possibilities for myself, when visiting Dar-es-Salaam recently. Tanzania's next elections are scheduled in 2010, so everybody advised me to wait and see what would be next Government's policies. In ameantime, I also want to learn as much as possible about Tanzanian business laws and other applicable topics, such as financing, insurance, etc.

So, what kind of business you want to be in? What are your skills? How much you want to achieve? You may post a response on your blog or e-mail me, if you want to discuss this topic more privately. My e-mail address is not exposed, however I can accept e-mail from you on this network.

Mary-Lou

Last edited by MaryLou (2009-09-18 12:01:05)

Hello.

Can we discuss a bit if you dont mind ----In private mails
Arusha Salma