The Moz Export Conference is conceived as a platform focused on the dissemination of preferential trade agreements and existing opportunities for export diversification and import substitution.
It is in evidence at the event organized by the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the discussion and exchange of ideas about the Mozambican export market, including its growth potential, the challenges faced by exporters and possible solutions.
Moz Export is effectively a platform focused on the dissemination of preferential trade agreements and existing opportunities for export diversification and import substitution for exports.
The Government says that “through its approach of economic diplomacy, it has been mobilising, establishing and promoting access of national production to strategic markets through the signing of bilateral and multilateral economic partnership agreements.
From the Government’s point of view, the approach fundamentally aims, on the one hand, to promote the diversification and increase of exports and investments with the active involvement of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), and on the other hand, to facilitate the establishment of partnerships with a significant improvement in the trade and capital account.
Mozambique has multilateral partnership agreements in force, namely with the SADC (15 States), with the European Union (27 States), with the African Continent (53 States) and bilateral preferential trade agreements with the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, with China, with the United States of America, with Indonesia, with Kenya, with Zimbabwe and with Malawi.
The Government says that the economic partnership agreements have allowed national production to have access to those markets, free of customs duties and quotas, which makes the possibility of internationalization of our local production in international trade more competitive and inclusive.
The balance of trade with the rest of the world in 2022, although still in deficit, registered a growth of 69% (22,762 million U.S. dollars against 13,469 million in 2021) with a total of 8,199 million U.S. dollars of exports (58% growth) against 14,563 million U.S. dollars of imports (76% growth), with preferential markets only absorbing 51% of the total of exported products.
Therefore, according to Ludovina Bernardo, Vice Minister of Industry and Commerce, who presided over the opening of the event, there continues to be consistent growth in exports of agricultural products (110% with a weight of 11% of total exports), with a level of diversification into new products also growing (7%), however, with little expression in business inclusion, to the extent that MSME’S only contributed with about 27% of total exports.
Regarding the European Union, this is the largest multilateral trading partner of Mozambique with which is in force, since 2017, the Economic Partnership Agreement and that in the last five years, we have maintained a favourable balance, amounting to 673.4 million dollars of exports.
“However, the challenge continues because the matrix of our exports to the European Union is still dominated by goods with little value addition and traditional from large companies,” the Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade said
The Minister also said that many conclusions may be drawn from the available data, but for the Government one thing is unequivocal: the fact that it has been possible to establish economic partnership agreements that, in her point of view, are an enormous possibility to increase and diversify the base of our exports through the active participation, supposedly, of MSMEs.
Thus, the objectives of the MozExport Program are to disseminate the economic partnership agreements that the Government has been negotiating, to facilitate through the Economic Associations a greater knowledge of them through an accessible, simple and practical literacy and, in a combined manner, to bring in and involve the main intervening parties in the institutional value chain of foreign trade in the step-by-step of how best to export.
Regarding the nuclear theme of the Conference “Exporting with Quality”, the expectation is that it accentuates the importance and interest of the Government, in promoting a national production that competes in the international market observing quality standards, more structured and export oriented business models, business models supported with market intelligence and customs clearance processes for export properly instructed.
“The country has potential in several priority economic sectors with strategic products in greater demand in the international market, so we have to know, master the content and maximise the content of the existing Economic Partnership Agreements. This is the essence of the MozExport program,” stressed the Vice-Minister of Industry and Commerce.
O.Económico
