The Mozambican President, Filipe Nyusi, admitted this Wednesday, 23 August, the possibility of the country following the example set by his Indonesian counterpart and banning the export of some minerals, forcing them to be processed locally.
Speaking at the Presidency of the Republic, together with his Indonesian counterpart, Joko Widodo, Filipe Nyusi pointed out that Indonesia’s experience should be capitalised on: “It takes time to create these bases, but with a little more courage it can be done, and done very well. And we have products, not just minerals, but others, whose export can be banned, so that it can be done here, in Mozambique,” said Nyusi.
The head of state said that Widodo “is a very visionary president, who has managed, in a very short time, to revolutionise his country and evolve, and become part of the five largest economies in the region where the country is located […]. In Indonesia, he banned the export of nickel, bauxite and copper. They don’t export it, there’s no one to dig it up and export it. It’s excavated and processed there. I asked him how many companies he managed to set up there and he told me that more than 48 new [companies] have been set up – industries, therefore – in order to be able to process these products, while at the same time providing jobs for many people,” he emphasised.
The two heads of state met this Wednesday as part of the visit by Joko Widodo, the first President of the Republic of Indonesia to visit Mozambique, after which the two governments signed a memorandum of understanding on the control of medicines and biological products, involving the respective regulatory authorities. A letter of intent on defence cooperation was also signed.
“We have decided that we are going to create a joint force, a task force, which will work from now on in concrete areas, above all on what our brothers know how to do and what we know or have that we can do together,” also announced Filipe Nyusi.
This working group will explore areas such as industrialisation, gas exploration and distribution, fisheries and even medical tests, with Mozambican cotton being exported to Indonesia for this purpose.
For his part, the Indonesian President stressed in his speech that Mozambique is Indonesia’s “first partner” in Africa, whose trade continues to grow, and argued that it is necessary to “optimise” the “preferential” agreement that already exists between the two countries.
On the table, he said, is the possibility of Indonesia selling locomotives to Mozambique, and the two countries will work on a reciprocal investment protection agreement.
