The sugar exported by Mozambique in the first quarter earned only three million dollars, a drop of 70.7% compared to the same period in 2023, according to central bank data published by Lusa on Saturday, 10 August.
According to a report by the Bank of Mozambique on the balance of payments in the first three months of the year, the drop in revenue from the export of Mozambican sugar “was due to a reduction in the volume exported, associated with the low availability of sugar cane”.
“Due to the floods at the beginning of the year,” the document reads.
In the first quarter of 2023, sugar exports earned Mozambique 10.3 million dollars.
Lusa reported this week that sugar production at the Mafambisse Sugar Mill, in Sofala province and one of Mozambique’s main sugar mills, is falling due to the combined effects of bad weather and climate change, according to the administration.
“We’re seeing a drop in our sugar production due to some difficulties caused by the bad weather in recent years in the country,” the director of Tongaat Hulett, the group that owns the Mafambisse sugar mill, Pascoal Macule, told reporters on Thursday (8).
He said that of the 75,000 tonnes produced annually by the company, this has fallen to 40,000 in the last two years, creating huge losses for the factory.
In the first quarter of 2023, sugar exports earned Mozambique 10.3 million dollars
Another factor influencing the sharp drop in production was the loss of around 8,000 hectares of sugar cane, the raw material for sugar production, due to the effects of climate change: “This in Nhamatanda, due to the drought in our fields and the El Niño phenomenon.”
Located in the administrative post of Mafambisse, in Sofala’s Dondo district, the sugar mill has the installed capacity to produce 92,000 tonnes of sugar a year.
Tongaat Hulett recently announced an injection of 500 million rand (26 million dollars) into the Mafambisse and Xinavane sugar mills, both in Mozambique and in which the South African group is the majority shareholder.
Mozambique is considered one of the countries most severely affected by climate change in the world, facing cyclical floods and tropical cyclones during the rainy season, which runs from October to April.
The 2018/2019 rainy season was one of the most severe on record: 714 people died, including 648 victims of cyclones Idai and Kenneth, two of the biggest ever to hit the country.
Sofala province, in the centre of the territory, has been hit hardest by the storms.
In the first quarter of last year, heavy rains and Cyclone Freddy caused 306 deaths, affected more than 1.3 million people in the country, destroyed 236,000 homes and 3,200 classrooms, according to official government figures.
