Digging deep Tanzania is in the final stages of approving a permit for the country’s first rare earths mine. As reported by Moneyweb, a special mining licence is set to be awarded to a subsidiary of ASX-listed Peak Resources for the Ngualla rare earths project. The company applied for the licence in 2017 to mine neodymium and praseodymium at the undeveloped site. While gold mining is currently Tanzania’s leading foreign-exchange earner, the country also has vast deposits of coal, rare-earths metals, iron ore and gemstones. The government has announced plans to increase mining revenue from the current KZS526.7 billion to TZS701.1 billion by 2023/24. 17 November 2020 Image: Gallo/Getty Images