MozUp, a business development centre created to promote the development of Mozambican small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), has been promoting training activities for companies directly or indirectly linked to the oil & gas value chain. This November, it is holding a series of seminars with the aim of promoting knowledge to foster access to potential business opportunities in Mozambique, mainly in the energy sector.
On Thursday 16 November, the first of six seminars to be held between Maputo and Pemba took place, attended by around 50 Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (MSMEs) looking to take advantage of business opportunities in the value chain of large Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) projects. To take part in the “free training sessions, people or companies just need to sign up”.
“If there is room, they can attend in person, because we have face-to-face, virtual and hybrid training (when it is given from Maputo with follow-up in Pemba),” explained Taciana Lopes, chairman of the board of Mozambique Enterprise for Sustainability (MES), a joint venture between DAI (a global social and economic development company) and the Mozambican implementation partner, TPLA Consulting, which is responsible for MozUp.
“We started our activities in 2019, which means we’ve already had four years in this area. We’ve already recorded around 5,500 participants in our training courses, of which 2,721 were single participants (1,652 men and 1,165 women), which shows that there’s always a very high level of participation, with a gender balance,” he said.
With regard to the impact of the training courses, Taciana Lopes explained that the organisation measures this firstly through company participation, revealing that companies show an enormous desire to be present in the market and therefore seek training. “That, for us, is the main indicator,” she said.
“This initiative comes from the Area 4 partners, led, as we know, by ExxonMobil, and the more macro intention is to enable MSMEs to be ready to respond to needs as soon as the project starts,” he pointed out, adding that “there are already several companies that have not only obtained certifications, but have also won contracts with other projects that are not related to the oil and gas industry, and many of them, after going through MozUp, are able to access financing from commercial banks.”
The MozUp programme, which has the support of ExxonMobil, Italy’s Eni, China’s CNPC, Empresa Nacional de Hidrocarbonetos (ENH), Galp and Kogas, began operations in 2019 with the main aim of contributing to the development of the national economy by empowering Mozambican MSMEs to access opportunities in the oil and gas industry and the energy sector in general.
Launched first in Maputo in 2019, MozUp EDC has already enabled 955 companies and 2151 people to participate virtually throughout the country in the 149 training courses given in key areas identified as challenges for Mozambican companies. Six of these were geared towards compliance and certification in International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) standards.
Other services provided by MozUp EDC include the implementation of business assessments and business strengthening plans, counselling on access to capital and financial services and activities to promote partnerships between companies for growth.
To date, 55 per cent (or 1404) of the 2559 suppliers registered on the supplier registration portal for Area 4 and Rovuma LNG are mostly Mozambican-owned entities.
