In the late 1980s, the government of Tanzania launched a program of reforms to reduce the role of the state in managing the economy and promote a greater role for the decisions of individual farmers, entrepreneurs, and consumers. The government removed extensive controls on consumer prices, liberalized agricultural markets, devalued the exchange rate (eventually allowing it to float), removed many import restrictions, lowered import tariffs, and closed or privatized a large majority of the state enterprises, which had been established in almost every sector of the economy.