Maputo, 20 May (AIM) – Mozambican exports to Zimbabwe reached about 200 million US dollars in 2022, which was a growth of 342 per cent when compared with the figure for 2016, President Filipe Nyusi announced on Thursday.
Speaking in Harare, at a Mozambique-Zimbabwe Business Forum, Nyusi said that the balance of trade between the two countries last year was 165 million dollars in Mozambique’s favour.
As for Zimbabwean investment in Mozambique, between 2013 and 2022, this amounted to 146 million dollars, including in industry, aquaculture, tourism and agro-processing.
“As may be concluded, we are still doing very little”, said Nyusi. “There is plenty of room to increase our commercial transactions. There is no reason why products available in Zimbabwe or in Mozambique should be surpassed by products imported from distant countries”.
Hence the Mozambican government, he added, has been banking on improving the infrastructures that facilitate investment and the mobility of people and goods.
As an example, Nyusi cited the investment of 200 million dollars in rail and port complexes, notably the rehabilitation of the 317 kilometre railway line from the central Mozambican port of Beira to Zimbabwe.
There have also been substantial investments in the port of Maputo. As a result, the Limpopo line, connecting Maputo to Zimbabwe, handled 368,846 tonnes of goods last year, which is an increase of 33 per cent on the 2021 figure.
“We intend to put the country in a better position to serve Zimbabwe and the other countries of our region”, said Nyusi.
Nyusi stressed that the world is going through a phase of energy transition in which strategic resources such as lithium and graphite, present in Mozambique and in Zimbabwe, offer opportunities for producing materials of high industrial value.
The production of batteries, he added, will require a reflection by business people in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) on the creation of value chains which allow the transformation of raw materials in both Mozambique and Zimbabwe.
(AIM)
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