Construction Machinery and Equipments in Tanzania

Tanzania applies a pre-shipment conformity regime, and the part that matters to a plant buyer is that capital goods can be taken out of it. Deciding whether to use that route, or to inspect, is a decision taken at enquiry stage.

PVoC and the exemption

Under the Tanzania Bureau of Standards programme, covered imports need a Certificate of Conformity issued before shipment, which in practice means an inspection organised in China while the machine is still in the works. Capital goods are exemptible. So the sequence on a road-plant order is to settle the classification, establish whether the heading is caught, and then choose with the buyer between pursuing the exemption and budgeting the time and cost of inspection. Leaving that until after the booking is made closes both options: a certificate obtained once the vessel has sailed is not one the port will take, and what remains is a destination inspection with the container standing and charges running.

Dar es Salaam and handling

Dar es Salaam is the gateway. For a machine of any size the questions that follow are about handling rather than paperwork — whether the item moves in a flat rack or as breakbulk, where the lift points are, what the shipping weight is, and whether the buyer's clearing agent has handled plant of that size before. Supply operating weight and transport dimensions from the data sheet and let the forwarder work from those figures rather than from an estimate.

Electrical supply and language

The grid runs at 230 V, 50 Hz, with Type G sockets, so no frequency conversion arises and a standard Chinese electrical build is directly usable. English is accepted for documentation and Swahili is the other working language; settle with the buyer which language the operator manual and the machine plates are to be produced in before manufacture, not after.

Public contracts

Procurement is regulated by the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority and tendered through the NeST electronic system. For a foreign manufacturer the realistic way into a trunk road or municipal contract is behind a locally registered bidder, with our contribution confined to the technical offer. Keep that schedule to measured values: driving type, drive type, operating weight, engine power, blade capacity, configuration and the standard the machine is built to.

What the division contains

The construction range runs to 86 machines. Those East African enquiries reach most often are the 1.7 m³ wheel loaders, articulated backhoe loaders, crawler and wheeled asphalt cold planers, crawler cold milling machines, a wheel-type cold milling machine covering 350 to 1320 mm milling width, a hydraulically driven wheeled asphalt paver for 1.8 to 4.5 m paving width, and the 280 rotary drilling machine. Whether warranty, installation or training apply is decided by the supply contract; we do not carry spares and we do not run a service network.