The Minister of Industry and Trade (MIC), Silvino Moreno, said on Wednesday 26 June that for the current five-year period (2020-2024), which is coming to an end, 1026 national and foreign direct investment projects had been approved, with a total volume equivalent to around 436 billion meticals (6.9 billion dollars) and the potential to generate 85,000 new jobs.
He was speaking during the “22nd Coordinating Council” on the theme of “Industrialising Mozambique: creating bases for Integrated and Sustainable Development”, which focused on assessing the degree of implementation of the government’s Five-Year Programme 2020 – 2024 and the outlook for the five-year period 2025-2029 in the industry and trade sectors.
“Of all the projects approved, a total of 579 are in the implementation phase, with emphasis on the construction and operation of an ilmenite and zircon industrial unit, budgeted at 1.8 billion meticals (30 million dollars), which is expected to create 180 jobs in Pebane, Zambezia province; the construction of a poultry, cattle and goat processing plant, budgeted at 1.4 billion meticals (23 million dollars), which is expected to create 25 jobs for both foreigners and nationals in Chigubo, Gaza province, which will help reduce meat imports; the installation and operation of a ceramics industrial unit with a total investment of 6.3 billion meticals (100 million dollars), currently employing 800 nationals and planning to employ more than a thousand people in Maputo, in the Moamba area,” said the minister.
Silvino Moreno
Speaking to journalists, Silvino Moreno expressed his satisfaction with the performance of the agricultural sector. “We’ve improved a lot in agricultural commercialisation. With SUSTENTA, which is the programme for food production, we’ve been able to improve our marketing levels over the five years and we’ve managed to create conditions so that operators in the marketing area can carry out their activities safely. We set up a specific financing line, which helped bring in around 59 operators. Therefore, production in the country has grown, especially of foodstuffs, as well as marketing and agro-processing, since we have processing units in all the provinces,” explained the minister, pointing out that every year since 2020 the agricultural marketing sector has grown by between 6% and 7%, and it had been planned to market around 82 million tonnes by 2024, and up until last year 79 million tonnes had been marketed, which means that the target will be reached.The source also referred to the contribution of the manufacturing industry to the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
“At industry level, we have the challenge of ensuring that all production can make the best contribution to the national GDP. From 1991 to 2005, for example, the manufacturing industry contributed around 10 per cent, which gave us the challenge of maintaining this figure. In the last five years, unfortunately because of covid-19, some industries have stopped working, so the sector’s contribution has decreased. But we have faith that, with the entry of new units, the number of industries will increase in the near future,” he said.
XXII MIC Coordinating Council
Regarding the Ministry of Industry and Trade’s current priorities, Silvino Moreno explained: “We want to industrialise the country. Firstly, we want to replace imports. We are currently finalising the establishment of a tile industry. As you know, we import a lot of terracotta tiles into the country and our expectation is that this import will fall almost to zero with the installation of the new factory, which will be inaugurated in the coming weeks. The government’s strategy is to replace imports and we’re going to do this through industrial parks. We have identified sites where these parks will be set up,” he said.
The minister emphasised that “the current government cycle has been affected, particularly in the economic and social spheres and in public finances, by covid-19, by the effects of geopolitical conflicts (which have affected the prices of the main basic products) and by natural disasters, which have destroyed infrastructure”.
It should be noted that the XXII MIC Coordinating Council will last three days, bringing together central and provincial sector officials, supervised institutions, economic and trade advisors and cooperation partners, to discuss crucial issues, with a focus on the country’s industrialisation, agricultural marketing, investment promotion, the business environment, internal and external trade.
