Mozambique spent $199.5 million on fuel imports in the first three months of the year, just over 15% of the total bill for the entire year of 2024, which was already at a low level, reported Lusa this Friday, August 8.
According to a statistical report from the Bank of Mozambique (BoM), of that total, the country imported $122.3 million worth of diesel and $65.8 million worth of gasoline in the first quarter alone.
Fuels accounted for nearly half of the $556.9 million worth of intermediate goods imported by Mozambique from January to March, which also included electricity, aluminum, construction materials, oil and lubricants, fertilizers, cement, and asphalt.
The country faced a fuel supply crisis in the first months of 2025, linked to a shortage of foreign currency in the market, prompting the central bank to announce measures to promote the availability of foreign currency to cover import needs.
The cost of fuel imports by Mozambique fell by 15% in 2024 to the equivalent of $1.2 billion, the lowest value since the COVID-19 pandemic, according to BdM data. According to a statistical report from the central bank, the cost of fuel imports by the country from January to December amounted to nearly $1.1 billion, compared to $1.4 billion in the entire year of 2023.
This performance follows the decline of the Mozambican economy, which contracted by 4.87% in the fourth quarter of 2024 year-on-year, a period marked by post-election unrest in the country, according to government data.
“Gross Domestic Product at market prices (GDPmp) showed a negative variation of 4.87% in the fourth quarter of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023, resulting in an accumulated [annual] growth of 1.85%,” reads the budget execution report for last year from the Ministry of Finance.
Besides the impacts of climate change, with severe droughts and cyclones hitting the country, the document also acknowledges “the negative impact of the post-election protests recorded in the last quarter of 2024,” which “affected economic and social activities.” In 2020 and 2021, these fuel imports had cost Mozambique $541.8 million and $946.9 million respectively, a period affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by the highest value in recent years in 2022, of $1.9 billion.
In June 2023, BoM announced it would stop subsidizing the country’s fuel import invoices abroad, considering that the amounts can now be covered by commercial banks.
The subsidy dates back to 2005 and once reached 100% after 2010, because there were “large amounts, ranging from $10 to $20 million in a single invoice,” making it unaffordable for a single bank or group of banks to cover it, explained Silvina de Abreu, BdM administrator, at the time. In recent years, “the invoices have become quite fragmented,” sometimes on the order of “one million dollars or less,” which allows smaller banks to enter “this fuel financing market,” she added.
Source: Diário Económico
