Mozambique Has Regained Credibility, Declares Nyusi

Mozambique Has Regained Credibility, Declares Nyusi

Maputo, 21 Dec (AIM) – 2022 was the year in which Mozambique regained credibility on the international financial market, President Filipe Nyusi claimed on Tuesday, as he delivered his annual State of the Nation address to the country’s parliament, the Assembly of the Republic.

“After more than six years of suspension, we achieved an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for macro-economic stabilization”, said Nyusi. “This agreement opened the doors to the re-establishment of normal relations with the other global financial partners”.

This renewed trust, he continued, “allowed us to achieve with the World Bank a non-reimbursable financing agreement, to the sum of 300 million dollars, to support the State Budget in 2022”.

“With the resumption of bilateral and multilateral partnerships, we are laying the bases for speeding up short, medium and long term macro-economic and structural reforms”, Nyusi claimed. “With this renewed credibility we have restored the respect and trust that the Mozambican people deserve. In 2022, we were able to restore the good name and reputation of our country”.

Mozambique had lost that good name in April 2016, when the scale of the scandal of the “hidden debts” became public knowledge. Three fraudulent, security-linked Mozambican companies had obtained loans of over two billion dollars from the banks Credit Suisse and VTB of Russia. This was only possible because the government of the day, under the then President Armando Guebuza, issued illegal loan guarantees, meaning that when the three companies went predictably bankrupt, the Mozambican state took responsibility for repaying the debts.

Nyusi declared that Mozambique’s regained trust “must be sustained by good practices, and this does not depend only on the government. All of us must consolidate, in our daily lives, a culture of transparency and accountability”.

The President said that, at the end of the third quarter of 2022, the annual economic growth rate had reached 4.37 per cent, much higher than either the 2.16 per cent recorded for 2021, or the initial forecast of 2.9 per cent for this year.

State revenue in the first nine months of the year was 214.9 billion meticais (about 3.4 billion dollars, at the current exchange rate), which was 73.1 per cent of the annual target, and compares with 198.1 billion meticais raised in the same period of 2021.

Public expenditure in the first three quarters of 2022 was 450.6 million meticais, which is 60.1 per cent of the annual target.

There was strong pressure on Mozambique’s domestic indebtedness, Nyusi said. Over the year the State’s domestic debt rose by 39 billion meticais, reaching a total debt stock of 266.5 billion meticais. Increased interest rates had resulted in increased demand for Mozambican Treasury Bonds.

“Despite everything, prospects remain for continual, sustainable growth of the economy”, declared the President. “Despite all the contingencies imposed on us, we have managed to dissipate inflationary pressures until the end of the year, based on an increase in production and productivity in the various sectors of the economy”.
(AIM)
Pf/ (501)