Sugar exported by Mozambique in the first half of the year earned 14.7 million dollars (14 million euros), an increase of 36% compared to the same period in 2023, according to central bank data compiled today by Lusa.
According to a report by the Bank of Mozambique on the balance of payments in the first six months of the year, this is a strong recovery for one of the country’s main agricultural crops, taking into account the year-on-year drop of 70.7% recorded in the first quarter.
“The performance of sugar exports was favored by the recovery of production and consequent exports, after the adverse climatic impacts that affected production in the same period of 2023,” reads the report on the first half’s performance, which compares with sales of 10.8 million dollars (10.3 million euros) in the same period last year.
Lusa reported in August that sugar production at Açucareira de Mafambisse, in Sofala province and one of Mozambique’s main sugar mills, is falling due to the combined effects of bad weather and climate change, according to the administration.
“We are seeing a drop in our sugar production due to some difficulties caused by the bad weather in recent years in the country,” Pascoal Macule, director of Tongaat Hulett, the group that owns the Mafambisse sugar mill, told reporters on Thursday.
He said that of the 75,000 tons produced annually by the firm, this has fallen to 40,000 in the last two years, creating huge losses for the factory.
Another factor influencing the sharp drop in production was the loss of around 8,000 hectares of sugar cane, the raw material for sugar production, due to the effects of climate change: “This in Nhamatanda, due to the drought in our fields and the El Niño phenomenon.”
Located in the administrative post of Mafambisse, in Sofala’s Dondo district, the sugar factory has the installed capacity to produce 92,000 tons of sugar a year.
Tongaat Hulett recently announced an injection of 500 million rand (25 million euros) into the Mafambisse and Xinavane sugar mills, both in Mozambique and in which the South African group is the majority shareholder.
Mozambique is considered one of the countries most severely affected by climate change in the world, facing cyclical floods and tropical cyclones during the rainy season, which runs from October to April.
The 2018/2019 rainy season was one of the most severe on record: 714 people died, including 648 victims of cyclones Idai and Kenneth, two of the biggest ever to hit the country.
Sofala province, in the center of the territory, has been one of the worst hit by storms.
In the first quarter of last year, heavy rains and Cyclone Freddy caused 306 deaths, affected more than 1.3 million people, destroyed 236,000 homes and 3,200 classrooms, according to official Mozambican government figures.
Lusa
