DAR ES SALAAM, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- Tanzania's central bank is in final touches of setting up a gold reserve, the governor of the bank said on Friday.
Florens Luoga, the Governor of the Bank of Tanzania (BoT), said the bank was only waiting for the refining of the gold locally.
"The central bank will start to buy gold for its reserve as soon as the gold is refined by 99.9 percent locally," Luoga told a news conference in the commercial capital Dar es Salaam.
The governor said there were already two investors who were at an advanced stage of starting to refine gold locally.
"We want to buy gold refined locally rather than buying from overseas markets which is very expensive," he said.
"In next three to five years the bank will have enough gold reserves," he said.
In 2017, Tanzanian President John Magufuli ordered the central bank to create a gold reserve, and he urged relevant authorities to better control mineral exports from the country, Africa's fourth largest gold producer.
