About 22 million dollars disbursed for small enterprises

Maputo, 6 Mar (AIM) – Mozambique’s National Development Finance Company, which was once known as the Small Industries Support Office (GAPI), disbursed over the last five years 1.4 billion meticais (about 22 million dollars at the current exchange rate) in order to fund Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs).

The amount, according to Mozambican President Daniel Chapo, who was speaking on Wednesday, in Maputo, at a ceremony marking 35 years of GAPI, supported 2,642 SMEs, generating about 8,753 jobs between 2020 and 2024.

“It is an example that deserves reflection because to serve these segments it’s not enough to provide finance, you have to train the clients and accompany them. It’s because of the specificity of this methodology that, 35 years on, the government has decided to create a development finance company instead of a bank or yet another department within a ministry”, he said.

According to Chapo, GAPI is a crucial institution for the country since it is responsible for providing technical and financial assistance for the emergence and consolidation of SMEs in rural areas.

He explained that the joint work between GAPI and the government made it possible to relaunch the cashew industry.

“We can’t forget its important role in mobilizing resources from the World Bank to support the social reintegration of employees. There were around 12,000 workers affected by the restructuring of the public Ports and Rail Company (CFM) that took place between 2000 and 2004. This was one of the most successful socio-professional insertion processes on the African continent”, he said.

Chapo added that the financial inclusion agenda, one of GAPI’s pillars of action, remains one of the priorities in the current cycle of governance.

“Of the country’s 154 districts, 83 percent are covered by a bank branch and 92 percent by an electronic currency agent. The government is working to create and put into practice the economic reconstruction and loan guarantee funds”, he said.

GAPI was set up as the Office of Support and Consultancy for Small Industries, a partnership between the Mozambican government, through the Treasury, and the German Friedrich Ebert Foundation, in 1985. Its focus was to support small industries in the context of the transition from central planning to a market economy, and it formally began operating on 1 March 1990.
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