Mozambique’s exports to EU reached 5.3 billion dollars last five years

Maputo, 18 Feb (AIM) – The Mozambican Minister of the Economy, Basílio Muhate, on Monday announced that the volume of Mozambique’s exports to the European Union (EU), over the last five years, reached 5.3 billion US dollars.

According to the minister, who was speaking on Monday, in Maputo, at the first edition of European Networking, which brings together the Chambers of Commerce of Mozambique and Europe, imports from Europe to Mozambique, during the same period, reached 4.19 billion dollars.

“This emphasizes the European Union’s role as our largest multilateral trading partner. We encourage European entrepreneurs to always work in conjunction with national institutions to support investment, business development and foreign trade, taking into account their role in the reform process underway”, he said.

Muhate explained that the Mozambican government has chosen the structural transformation of the economy as one of the main strategies to pursue the agenda of economic recovery and sustainable modernization.

“A lot has been achieved in terms of job creation, and we think they can do even more. We acknowledge the efforts of European entrepreneurs in the country and others to create jobs”, he added.

For his part, the European Union ambassador to Mozambique, Antonino Maggiore, said that his delegation’s mission is to work with all the country’s forces to accompany the country’s reforms and development.

“As the European Union, we are ready to support these reforms. The partnership between Mozambique and the European Union is very deep and cooperation with the private sector is fundamental to our global strategy, based on the concept of connectivity”, he said.

The chairperson of the European Business Association (EUROCAM), Simone Santi, guaranteed that European businesses have confidence in Mozambique, although they call for more efforts to fight corruption.

He explained that post-election protests caused enormous damage to European investors, “but these phenomena should also be seen in a positive light.”

“On the positive side you have a country that is full of energy, that has excellent natural resources, not just gas, but also water, soil, heavy sands, and other minerals that the world needs at the moment”, he said.

According to Santi, the European businesspeople have demonstrated their ability to work with the Mozambican business community, the Chamber of Commerce of Mozambique (CCM) and the Confederation of Economic Associations (CTA).

This event comes at a time when the country is working in order to recover and leverage its economy in the face of the mass demonstrations called by the former presidential candidate Venancio Mondlane in order to protest against the allegedly fraudulent results of the elections held on 9 October. The demonstrations started peacefully but then degenerated into looting and destruction of public and private institutions, and over 300 people were shot dead by the police.
(AIM)
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