The European Union (EU) is currently positioning itself as a crucial partner for Mozambique in facing economic challenges and guaranteeing action in priority areas such as trade facilitation, the green transition, digital transformation, sustainable growth and employment.
According to data from the report on “Trade in Goods with Mozambique”, in 2022 the EU imported products from the country valued at a total of 2.8 billion euros (the equivalent of 186.6 billion meticais), including aluminium, tobacco and some agricultural products.
“Mozambique’s exports to the EU have grown in recent years, which makes the trade balance between the two points positive,” said Derk Bienen, a consultant for the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) at European bloc level.
Speaking on Thursday, 26 October, in Maputo, during a workshop to evaluate the EPA signed in 2016 by the EU and six Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries, namely Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia and South Africa, he said that there are great export opportunities that have not yet been realised, in mineral and agricultural products, such as zirconium and titanium, cashews, sesame, avocados, peanuts and beans.
“Mozambique can freely export to the European Union without customs duties or quotas, and the EPA supports national farmers and producers in meeting the required food safety standards,” he recalled.
The Economic Partnership Agreement aims to orientate trade towards development, as well as helping African countries to produce and export processed goods rather than raw products. In Mozambique specifically, the agreement began to be applied in February 2018 and, according to some consultants, it has brought positive results, despite the occurrence of adverse phenomena.
In general, Derk Bienen revealed that trade between the EU and the six EPA partners “had stagnated between 2011-16 at around 41 billion euros, but increased substantially in 2017, fell in 2020 due to the pandemic, and then recovered to 63 billion euros in 2022”.
