Portugal’s ambassador to Mozambique said on Wednesday, November 29, that his country will continue to appeal to its European Union partners to invest more in the country.
António Costa Moura was speaking in the city of Pemba, in Cabo Delgado, during the awarding of certificates to eight companies in the province that had been audited for 12 months, in an initiative of the + Emprego project, run by the Camões I.P. Institute, with funding from the European Union (EU).
“We want to explain at length to our partners in the European Union, where we are integrated by virtue of our geography, that this exercise is vital, because Mozambique has a mostly young population that needs opportunities to continue developing the country,” said the Portuguese diplomat, stressing that “youth really is the future of a nation”.
Data from the latest population census, carried out in 2017, released by the National Statistics Institute (INE), indicates that, of the 32 million Mozambicans, around 9.4 million are young people, a third of whom have no job, schooling or professional training.
In partnership with the EU, the + Emprego project is budgeted at 4.2 million euros, equivalent to 291.5 million meticais, and is aimed exclusively at training and empowering young people who can become involved in the natural gas sector in northern Mozambique.
